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qbrooklyn1056 · 4 years ago

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We Belong Too!

Black and Latinos have been displaced in New York City school’s systems for a very long time. Let's talk about a time where Blacks/Latinos were in place with these specialized high schools. In the late 70s and 80s Black/Latinos were in these specialized schools in dozens. Throughout the years this has declined drastically, because of gentrification, wealth, and power, now these schools are filled with Whites/Asian, with Asian taking the lead in these specialized high schools. This makes it harder for disadvantaged children to even get their applications looked at. Schools like Brooklyn Tech, Stuyvesant High, and Bronx High School of Science were once seeing high numbers of Black/Latino students. You have former students and people of the community, and even Mayor Bill De Blasio is getting in on this topic and is causing a lot of controversy.

Stuyvesant high school seems to be one of the schools that a lot of Black/Latino’s teens were able to attend. There was a special placement test that you had to take to be accepted to the school and all though got many minorities placed in these specialized schools. This same test would also be the reason for so many other minorities not to get in, till this day this is a big issue/topic. Like back in the day, these schools were already coming from segregation, so it’s not like it's far-fetched that a lot of minorities would attend these schools anyway. There was hope in the 70s, with the raise of Black/Latino students in these gifted schools.

A lot of these students were from underprivileged families and low-income neighborhoods. They had hard work ethics and drive, and had to study twice as hard to even get a chance to take the placement test to enter these schools. The hunger and fight in those future Lawyer's, Anthropologists, and Scientists is what made them who they are today. I bet these teenagers thought they had started a long-time goal, which was to have more people who looked like them attend these "Gifted " schools. How was they supposed to know that after them the number of minorities in elite high school would almost not exist. Not because the children aren't smart, but because some didn't feel a need for minorities to attend schools with their will to do kids, or some felt they were being bumped because of affirmative action. Whatever the reasons are, we should not still be having the same debate in this day and age, from any other people or will to do with people.

It seems like in the 90s things got worse. You still had some minorities in these elite schools but very few as the previous years. It made it seem like all the white/Asians were the only smart people for a while. You had low-income children who were smart but didn't have the money or didn't even get a chance to take the placement test because it seemed like the school met their minority quote or something. This was so unfair to a lot of Blacks/Latinos, because if you don't know, I'm here to tell you, Blacks/Latinos are some of the most gifted and creative people you will ever come across, because they are born with so much flavor. That’s could be why you do see a lot of minorities at performing arts schools. (The elite performing art schools also are biased when selecting students, but that is another topic). But, what about the minorities that are just as book smart as the next person, just always don't get the opportunity to show it. Plus, test prep is always where a lot of students take when trying to get into one of these schools, but the problem is, the cost starts at $1000, and most low-income families can't afford that. That seems like a way to keep a certain class of people out of these schools, knowing certain people can't afford it. This is why programs for people of color are so important to have so that our children can be on the same playing field as the next.

I spoke with somebody who was around and went to school in New York at the time. My neighbor Mr. Carlos Ramos, whose 57 said back then it was more pride and seem like way more value in going to school back then

ME: Mr. Ramos how did it feel going to an elite school back in the late 70s early 80s?

CR: It felt like winning the lottery, when you see/or hear you got accepted to one of these great schools. This is because, back then times were really hard, and me and my family lived in Bushwick. This is the time when the crack epidemic was happening and wasn't safe at all to be in my neighborhood.

ME: How many minority students did you see in your school if you can recall, also what school did you go to?

CR: I was accepted into Brooklyn Technical High School, in the downtown Brooklyn area. It was mostly Asian kids and whites, but at that time we did have a good two hand full of minority students. I know it doesn’t sound like a lot but I promise you it was.

Me: Were you nervous at all going to an Elite school?

CR: I knew I was just as smart and worked twice as hard to get into that school and nobody was going to stop me. NOBODY! I was at times a little fearful, because as you know racial tensions in this country seem to always be high. Overall, I knew how to defend myself. I mean I was raised with 10 brothers. Lol.

ME: Are you still friends with any of the minorities who went to Brooklyn Tech with you? Also, why do you think there is a lack of minority students in these elite schools in this day and age.

CR: Yes. I have built lifetime friends with a lot of them, not just my minority peers. We are all doing really great. I’m a computer engineer/Bio scientist, and some of them are lawyers, doctors, and high-priced realtors. To answer the second part, I believe the reason you see a lack of diversity in these elite schools is because they don’t want the playing field to be equal. Too many minorities are making something out themselves these days, and white race doesn’t like that. We’re owning too much property for them, so they're making up laws that you never heard of, or locking minorities up at a higher rate, so that our youth won’t succeed.

Back in, I believe 2009 former Mayor Michael. R. Bloomberg "implemented a citywide test-based threshold for gifted and talented programs." (ES) This was supposed to be a way for the city to diversify these elite schools but it backfired and excluded even more Black/Latinos. A lot of these areas where some of these elite schools are placed are in wealthy neighborhoods that don't want what they call people from the ghetto entering their schools or being around their kids. In fact, our current Mayor Belsio is trying to do away with placement tests in general, which is the way to get into the school. This would eliminate the top performing students and place over 50 % of Black/Latinos in these schools and Asian students would lose half of their spots. As you see in the charts Asian have become the leaders of specialized schools, so honestly, they can just get put on another schools list, because honestly speaking they still may get picked over a Black/Latino person in the next school anyway. I'm just saying they basically have a better shot at getting in any elite school, than Black/Latinos. This is causing wealthy parents to sue the school district over feeling their kids are getting mistreated and it’s not fair to have these kids from the ghetto go to school with their "precious and brilliant, perfect kids" YEAH RIGHT!!!!! The ones from the low-income backgrounds are the one who should be given a chance to show what they can do, since it seems like everyone knows what the kids already in those schools can do. It's like saying we never heard of somebody having a lot of money or going to an elite school would commit a crime... Lol. We all know that’s B.S.

Don’t get me wrong Blacks/Latinos have come a long way and are making history in this world today, but to get the same respect and options is what we need just as much. Let kids be kids and let kids be great. How can they be great or all they can be if the people leading them can't even get it together for them.

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mojave-pete · 5 years ago

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BAN EVERYTHING

As Mayor of New York City, billionaire Michael Bloomberg was the quintessential statist.

Even though he ran as Republican, the ‘stop and frisker’ was more of a neocon than libertarian. He’s also very pro-abortion, pro illegal immigration, and pro-taxes. He’s known for creating a lot of rules and regulations. He wanted to ban salt at restaurants and Big Gulp sodas at fast food restaurants. He is for gun control and had banned smoking in public places. Bloomberg said government was ‘a force for good.’ Notice the word ‘force.’ Government is force, and like many tyrants, Bloomberg gets to decide what is good for us. The billionaire switched parties and became a Democrat, which is more in alignment with his views. That is, they all love a big, bloated, and meddlesome government that forces citizens to do their bidding.

His main passion doing something about ‘climate change.’ Washington Governor Jay Inslee also made that the number 1 priority in his campaign. He’s already dropped out. Americans don’t want globalism or a carbon tax.

We don’t want to be forced to buy electric cars and have cheap and clean-burning coal plants shut down. Bloomberg is trying to drum up fear—doom and gloom—in order to get action on ‘climate change.’ He wants the Green New Deal or some variation on that disaster. Most Americans know the climate changes—it’s called weather. They don’t want to lose their jobs or pay a carbon tax. They are too busy struggling to make ends meet to make it a top issue in their lives. Bloomberg doesn’t have that problem—he’s worth comfortable $58 billion dollars. He wants his planet saved! He wants his populace controlled!

Bloomberg saw Donald Trump a fellow billionaire become president against all odds. Perhaps he thought Trump won because he had a lot of campaign money at his disposal. Not so. Hillary outspent Trump 2 to 1 and still lost. Bloomberg has Trump Derangement Syndrome. Here’s one of his quotes:

“We cannot afford four more years of President Trump’s reckless and unethical actions. He represents an existential threat to our country and our values. If he wins another term in office, we may never recover from the damage.”

Bloomberg may not realize it, but Trump didn’t win because he was a billionaire. He won because he offered Americans a chance to get our Republic back. It was stolen by the Deep State and they are a very corrupt lot. They’re the swamp that Trump has promised to drain. Bloomberg is part of that swamp and that’s why he will lose.

—Ben Garrison

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theliberaltony · 5 years ago

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via Politics – FiveThirtyEight

Sen. Elizabeth Warren gained support in national polls for much of 2019. By October, she had nearly caught the front-runner, former Vice President Joe Biden. She topped him in polls of Iowa and New Hampshire. Warren seemed positioned to seriously contend for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination.

Once voting started, however, the delegates never really materialized. Warren, who will reportedly announce that she is suspending her campaign on Thursday, never finished higher than third in any primary or caucus, including in Massachusetts, the state she has represented in the Senate since 2013.

So what went wrong for Warren, who was perhaps the most credible threat to prevent a two-person race between Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders? I think there are four main explanations for her lack of support, and they are all connected.

The party was wary of a “too liberal” nominee

Warren took positions similar to those Sanders has embraced, such as supporting a wealth tax and, most notably, calling for Medicare for All. Some more centrist Democrats simply oppose those policies. Others worried that Medicare for All, and the winding down of private insurance, would be too disruptive and the idea would scare away too many voters.

So Warren’s ascent to the top of the polls was met with resistance from a big chunk of the Democratic Party establishment. News articles began to proliferate quoting party donors and leaders fretting about the Democratic 2020 field. Former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and former Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick launched late bids for the nomination that almost amounted to “Stop Warren” candidacies. The anti-Warren movement was essentially a preview of the more aggressive anti-Sanders campaign orchestrated by party establishment figures between the Vermont senator’s victory in the Nevada caucuses and Super Tuesday.

So whatever her campaign tactics, Warren likely would have struggled to win the nomination for the same reason that Sanders is now an underdog to Biden: Her leftism didn’t appeal to party elites, who signaled to voters that Warren lacked “electability,” the credential many Democratic voters are obsessed with this election cycle.

Of course, Warren could have taken different policy positions, or tried spinning the same ones in different ways, except …

She tried to win very liberal voters from Sanders

Sanders urged Warren to run for president as the liberal alternative to Hillary Clinton during the 2016 election cycle. Warren declined, the Vermont senator jumped in himself, and Sanders became the informal leader of the liberal wing of the Democratic Party after his surprisingly successful 2016 presidential run. With both of them running in 2020, Sanders and Warren spent much of last year basically battling over who could release the most liberal plans, such as making college free, increasing taxes on the rich, and so on.

A big part of that battle revolved around health care. Warren, before the 2020 campaign, had not made health policy a major part of her brand or focused a lot on Medicare for All. But with Sanders leaning into that stance, she opted to adopt a similar position. And in the fall of 2019, she doubled down, releasing a detailed proposal to fund Medicare for All. When Sanders had a heart attack in early October, many people, including me, anticipated that he would gradually drop in the polls, and Warren’s advisers might have assumed so as well. In that context, Sanders’s voters would be up for grabs, and supporting Medicare for All would help Warren inherit those supporters. Or the Warren campaign may have simply hoped to win over the Sanders bloc, heart attack or no; remember, she had been climbing in the polls for months at that point.

Instead, Sanders recovered, both healthwise and in the polls. Once voting started, Warren performed best among Democrats who described their views as “very liberal,” but she still trailed Sanders among those voters. And she had terrible numbers among self-described moderates. She had failed to outflank Sanders on the left, but she failed to win over those voters while also convincing a lot of centrist Democrats that she was too liberal and perhaps a risky bet in the general election.

Of course, the assumption that she’d be a general-election risk was likely related to another factor …

Democrats seem to think men are more electable

Several of the women who ran for president — Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand, Kamala Harris and Amy Klobuchar, in particular — have said that they faced constant gender-based questions from Democratic voters about their electability. Democrats nominated a woman to take on Trump once, lost, and may have been unwilling to do it again. I don’t want to downplay the strengths of Biden or Sanders or ignore the weaknesses of the women and people of color who ran in 2020, but the primary process coming down to two white male candidates1 probably reflected this view of electability. Biden and Sanders were consistently rated as the most likely to defeat Trump in a general election.

This electability challenge was arguably the biggest problem for Warren. While rank-and-file voters talked about her gender, more elite Democrats and the media cast her as a bad candidate to face Trump for other reasons (how much these reasons were also simply cover for concerns about nominating a woman, I can’t say). First, she had fairly weak numbers against Trump (compared to Biden and Sanders) in hypothetical general-election polls. Second, considering the liberal tilt of Massachusetts, she notched somewhat underwhelming margins of victory in her 2012 and 2018 Senate runs. Third, she took decidedly liberal positions on policy questions. And finally, Warren’s background, as a Harvard Law professor and Massachusetts senator, made some party officials worried that she would not connect with Democratic voters in the Midwest. I’m not sure how valid these concerns actually are, but party elites and the press considered them barriers to Warren winning.

She was the “wine track” candidate

There is a long tradition of lefty candidates running in the Democratic primary and getting a lot of traction, buzz and campaign donations from party activists but not really catching on with rank-and-file voters. Think Sen. Bill Bradley in the 2000 presidential cycle or Gov. Howard Dean in 2004. This kind of candidate is sometimes referred to the “wine track” candidate, who appeals mainly to elites, as opposed to candidates who are on more “beer track,” who are thought of as being better at connecting with the working class.

Warren was perhaps the 2020 wine track candidate. In her campaigning and policy plans, Warren tried hard to counter this weakness by courting working class and nonwhite voters. She was well-liked by black academics, figures associated with the Black Lives Matter movement and a hard-to-qualify bloc of black figures who are vocal on Twitter and influential in non-electoral ways.

But she just never caught on with a broad swath of voters — polls suggest that she had little support outside of white college graduates. The New York Times described Warren as the candidate who often had the support of the “grass tops” rather than the grassroots — meaning that the leaders of activist groups often really liked Warren, but it’s not clear that the lower ranks did. For example, Warren won the personal endorsement of the president of the American Federation of Teachers, but the union itself wouldn’t endorse her because many of its members were with Biden or Sanders.

So Warren lost. In fact, she didn’t really come particularly close to winning. That said, her campaign mattered in a way that a lot of other failed 2020 candidacies didn’t.

Her strategy of rolling out a ton of left-leaning policy plans arguably forced Sanders to match her, and she pushed the other candidates leftward even if they didn’t wind up quite where Warren was. Her plans also created public conversations about ideas that had not previously been in the mainstream, such as the idea that Facebook should be broken up. And I expect future Democratic candidates for president and other offices will tout ideas similar to the wealth tax that she proposed.

In other words, no matter whether the nomination goes to Sanders or Biden, many of Warren’s ideas may end up “winning,” even if she couldn’t.

#IFTTT #Politics – FiveThirtyEight #politics #538 #Perry Bacon Jr.

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a-wandering-fool · 6 years ago

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Democrats are patting themselves on the back over a resolution which was so watered down that it ignored the reason for its creation.

Why Won’t Dems Condemn Ihlan Omar In Resolution On Antisemitism?

House Will Vote on ‘Resolution Broadly Condemning Hate’ Without Naming Ilhan Omar

She seems so pleasant, doesn’t she?

Ilhan Omar Dunks on Meghan McCain’s ‘Faux Outrage’ Over Anti-Semitism

Ilhan Omar attacks Obama: “We don’t want anybody to get away with murder because they are polished”

Ilhan Omar’s Attempt to Shame Politico Reporter Over Obama Quotes Backfires. Bigly.

Yet she wants big money out of politics.

FEC Complaint Alleges Ocasio-Cortez, Chief of Staff Moved Almost $1 Million Contributions to His Companies

Oh the irony.

Greenpeace Co-Founder Rips Ocasio-Cortez Over Green New Deal: “You Don’t Have a Plan…You Would Bring Mass Death.”

Shocker.

Sanders’ Top Advisers Linked to 2012 Anti-Semitism Scandal at Center for American Progress

True.

Trump: “The Democrats have become an anti-Israel party. They’ve become an anti-Jewish party.”

Huge news!

Introducing the Legal Insurrection Foundation

2020 election updates.

The Chorus Against Joe Biden Running for President Gets Louder

Shocker: Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown Decides Not to Run for President

Warren struggles to answer question on Native American claim: “So why did you do it?”

Some drop out, more move in.

Democrat Presidential Sweepstakes: Holder Out, Hickenlooper In

Hillary says not running for president in 2020 — Nation *mourns* [Update]

Michael Bloomberg Passing on 2020 Election

What crisis?

More than 76,000 Illegal Immigrants Crossed the Southern Border Last Month

World news.

British PM Theresa May Holds Summit to Address UK Knife Crime Epidemic

Merkel Backs Student-Led ‘Climate’ Protests

Branco cartoons!

Branco Cartoon – Say Her Name

Branco Cartoon – A-OK

=========================

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bitcofun · 2 years ago

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Jesse Powell, CEO of Kraken. Source: krakenfx/ Instagram Major crypto exchange Kraken revealed that co-founder Jesse Powell is stepping down from his position as CEO. Powell co-founded the business back in 2011 with Thanh Luu, and is thought about among the leaders in the area. Per this statement, COO Dave Ripley will prosper Powell, while the latter will end up being chairman of the board of directors. Ripley, nevertheless, will presume his brand-new function as CEO after the exchange finishes its look for a brand-new COO. Powell, on his part, stated that he eagerly anticipates investing more time "on the business's items, user experience and more comprehensive market advocacy."" As the business has actually grown, it's simply gotten to be more draining pipes on me, less enjoyable," Powell was priced quote by Bloomberg as stating. "I still prepare to remain really engaged with the business" as the biggest investor and member of the board. Per Bloomberg, Powell notified the business about his choice over a year earlier. He included journalism release that Ripley's "tested management and experience" offer the now-former CEO self-confidence that the brand-new CEO is "the perfect follower and the very best individual to lead Kraken through its next age of development." Ripley has actually been Kraken's COO for 6 years, signing up with the exchange through its acquisition of Glidera, a crypto wallet financing service where he was co-founder and CEO. Kraken credits him with growing the exchange from 50 to over 3,000 employees, including that, "under [his] assistance", Kraken finished more than sixteen acquisitions and protected "a considerable number" of worldwide regulative licenses and collaborations. Meanwhile, news outlets, such as The New York Times and Bloomberg, have brought back into focus Powell's dispute with Kraken's workers-- particularly the dispute that emerged this year around his gender- and race-related declarations. The business shared a post on "Kraken Culture" too, and after what he viewed to be an unsuccessful argument, Powell tweeted that Kraken is going "back to dictatorship." A number of workers left the company at the time. Powell was estimated by Bloomberg as stating that," My design is constantly to be really transparent and genuine. [...] I believe it's exercised truly well. We've had individuals who were not an excellent fit at the business, who were interruption, who are gone now. And after that we've likewise drawn in a great deal of other individuals." Powell's function modification is not the only one following the current crypto market crash. To name a few, Alameda Research co-CEO Sam Trabucco stepped down from that function, remaining on as a consultant, while MicroStrategy's Michael Saylor quit his CEO title. Powell likewise informed Bloomberg that Kraken is "placing itself to have the alternative of going public," though no particular timeline was offered. Since the year started, Kraken's worldwide market share amongst the top 15 exchanges has actually visited about 32%, per information supplier CryptoCompare In July, it was reported that Coinbase, Binance, and Kraken being in the leading 3 areas for the 2nd quarter of this year, according to the ranking by Paris-based information company Kaiko Meanwhile, in late July, Kraken came under examination as it was presumed of breaking United States sanctions by enabling users in Iran and in other places to purchase and offer crypto, the New York Times reported at the time, pointing out concealed individuals associated with the business or with understanding of the questions. The Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control(OFAC) had actually been examining Kraken because 2019 and was anticipated to enforce a fine, per the report. In August, it was reported that Kraken, Binance, Shapeshift, and Bittylicious triggered an approximated 240,000 UK financiers to lose GBP 9.9 bn (USD 12 bn) in overall when these exchanges delisted bitcoin SV (BSV), according to Velitor Law, a law practice representing the financiers.

The claim was given the Competition Appeal Tribunal ____ Read More

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patriotsnet · 3 years ago

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Who Are The Republicans On The Senate Judiciary Committee

New Post has been published on https://www.patriotsnet.com/who-are-the-republicans-on-the-senate-judiciary-committee/

Who Are The Republicans On The Senate Judiciary Committee

Senate Judiciary Committee Advances Legislation To Provide Justice For Child Abuse Victims Aid In Suicide Prevention And Safeguard Children From Predators

Senate Judiciary Committee Approves Amy Coney Barrett Nomination For Full Vote

The Senate Judiciary Committee, today, advanced three pieces of legislation to help protect victims by allowing a two-year window for childhood sexual abuse survivors to pursue civil lawsuits, aiding in the prevention of youth and intellectually disabled suicides, and safeguarding children from predatory acts of adults in positions of authority, according to chairwoman Senator Lisa Baker . ;

As Trump Names His Next Supreme Court Nominee Focus Shifts Towards Senate

Trump plans to formally introduce his nominee at a 5 p.m. White House ceremony. Conservative activists hailed Trump’s selection, which surfaced on Friday night, while liberals voiced dismay.

Trending Now

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Nominations For Attorney General

The following nominations were made for attorney general in the Obama and Trump administrations.

Confirmation process for nominees for attorney general Nominee Confirmed on March 10, 2021 70-30 Confirmed on February 14, 2019 54-45 Confirmed on February 8, 2017 52-47 Confirmed on April 23, 2015 56-43 Confirmed on February 2, 2009 75-21

The committee chairman in the 117th Congress is Dick Durbin .

Simone Biles And Other Olympians To Testify Before Senate Judiciary Committee

Republican senator says Judiciary Committee will investigate allegations of voting irregularities

Lauren Gambino

Olympian Simone Biles will testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday in an oversight hearing into the FBIs dereliction of duty in its failure to properly investigate the sexual abuse allegations against former USA Gymnastics national team doctor Larry Nassar.

Biles will be joined on the panel by McKayla Maroney, Maggie Nichols, and Aly Raisman. FBI director Christopher Wray and Department of Justice Inspector GeneralMichael Horowitzwill also testify.

Senate Judiciary Committee

BREAKING: Olympic and world champion gymnasts Simone Biles, McKayla Maroney, Maggie Nichols, and Aly Raisman to testify at Wednesday’s Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on the FBI’s dereliction of duty in the Nassar case.DOJ IG Horowitz and FBI Dir. Wray to also testify.

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Senate Committee On The Judiciary

The Senate Committee on the Judiciary provides oversight of the Department of Justice and the agencies under the Department’s jurisdiction, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Department of Homeland Security. It also plays an important role in the consideration of nominations and pending legislation. Any legislation related to civil liberty, constitutional amendments, immigration and naturalization, and a variety of other topics is referred to the Committee.

Prelogar Sails Through Nomination Hearing With Only Mild Republican Critiques

Elizabeth Prelogar, President Joe Bidens nominee to be solicitor general, sat through a swift nomination hearing on Tuesday afternoon. Appearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, she was met with strong praise from Democrats, limited pushback from Republicans, and few questions overall.

From Bidens inauguration on Jan. 20 until her nomination to the position of solicitor general on Aug. 11, Prelogar served as acting solicitor general. Due to a quirk in the Federal Vacancies Reform Act, she had to step down from her acting role while the Senate considers her nomination to hold the position on a permanent basis. The solicitor general represents the federal governments interests before the Supreme Court and is sometimes known as the 10th justice because of the influence that the job carries.

Two Republicans homed in on the solicitor generals office for reversing the governments legal position in a number of cases since the change in administrations. Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, quoted from a Bloomberg Law article that the Biden administration is on track to reverse the governments position in more cases before the Supreme Court than the Justice Department did during the first full high court term of Donald Trumps presidency. Grassley questioned Prelogar on whether continuing in a similar vein would pose challenges to the offices credibility.

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The Senate Judiciary Committee held hearings on Neil Gorsuch‘s nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court from March 20-23, 2017. Gorsuch was President Donald Trump’s first nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court. Gorsuch was nominated on January 31, 2017, to succeed Justice Antonin Scalia, who died on February 13, 2016.

A confirmation hearing for Jeff Sessions, Donald Trump‘s nominee for United States Attorney General was held on January 10, 2017.

Biden Speaks On His Administration’s Response To Wildfires

Everyone in northern California knows the time of the year when you cant go outside, when the air will be filled with smoke and the sky will turn an apocalyptic shade of orange, Joe Biden said, speaking after the states governor.

These fires are a blinking code red for our nation. We know what we have to do and it starts with our firefighters putting their lives on the line in rugged and dangerous conditions, the president said, referring to his administrations efforts to raise firefighter pay.

The White House

Happening Now: President Biden delivers remarks on the Administrations response to recent wildfires, and how we can strengthen our resilience to climate change and extreme weather.

Entry-level federal wildland firefighters earn a base pay below $14 an hour, while the same job with Cal Fire, the state firefighting agency, pays around $26 an hour. The job is risky and physically exhausting, requiring extended time away from home.

US Forest Service records showed that only half of fire engines were fully staffed at the start of the season, putting additional pressure on crews responding to this years massive fires.

Maanvi Singh

In a poll released Monday by the UC Berkeleys Institute of Governmental Studies, co-sponsored by the Los Angeles Times, 75% of registered voters said they wanted to keep their right to remove a statewide official through a recall election.

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Judiciary Republicans Demand Second Hearing Information Following Revelations Of Atf Nominees Racist Comments About Colleagues

First, we have allegations that Mr. Chipman made racist statements about the abilities of African American ATF agents, the existence of which;allegations;have been confirmed by current and former ATF officials.;;

Second, these;allegations imply that an important field assignment in Mr. Chipmans career was one that he allegedly was both forced first to take and then to relinquish.;

Would A New Vaccination Mandate For Employers Affect Your Vax Status

Judiciary Committee

Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee are demanding a second hearing for David Chipman, President Bidens nominee to lead the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, amid reports that he made racist comments.

In a letter sent Thursday to committee Chairman Richard J. Durbin, Illinois Democrat, the senators pointed to a June news report claiming an anonymous ATF agent said Mr. Chipman made racially insensitive comments about Black agents being promoted in the Detroit Field Division.

Conservative outlet The Daily Caller News Foundation reported that in 2007 he said: Wow, there were an unusually large number of African American agents that passed the exam this time. They must have been cheating.

TOP STORIESTop U.S. general in Afghanistan contradicts Biden, told chain of command not to pull out

The senators brought up another article published Thursday by The Reload, which states two unnamed ATF agents, one current and one former agent, have corroborated the claim.

The conservative news outlet noted that it has not been able to verify the veracity of the allegation Chipman made racist remarks, only that the allegation exists.

The article also states agent Rick Vasquez said Mr. Chipman took a job as a special agent in Detroit because nobody else would and that an unnamed former agent said Mr. Chipman left because of the alleged comments.

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Senate Judiciary Committee Advances Legislation And Approves The Nomination Of New Victim Advocate

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Years In Congress Minimum And Maximum Estimated Net Worth

Republicans on Senate Judiciary Committee send Barrett’s SCOTUS nomination to Senate floor

;

Source: OpenSecrets

Well leave it to someone else to explain how Perdue and Tillis got such a plum assignment as freshmen.

I think you can see for yourself who has spent some time in the 1% income bracket . And data from the Fedsuggests that about half of the top 1 percent of earners are also among the top 1 percent in the net worth category.

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Meet The Cabinet: Merrick Garland Is Bidens Pick For Attorney General

Garland testified before the panel last week about how he would lead the Justice Department if he is confirmed by the Senate, reassuring senators that he would protect the department’s independence and not allow politics to interfere with the job.

In comments before the vote, committee Chair Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said, “America will be better with this kind of person leading the Justice Department.”

Grassley said a moment later: “I plan to vote for him. I hope my trust is not misplaced.”

Other Republicans were harsher. Cruz claimed that Garland “refused to answer virtually anything” during his confirmation hearings an assertion that Durbin disputed.

Cornyn told reporters last week that Garland is “a straight shooter when it comes to questions of law.” He said “he’s had an incredible career” and “seems like a fundamentally decent human being.”

Other Republicans on the committee, including some possible 2024 presidential contenders, like Hawley, were less enthusiastic and expressed strong reservations.

Garland emphasized that if he is confirmed, he would “supervise the prosecution of white supremacists and others who stormed the Capitol on January 6 a heinous attack that sought to disrupt a cornerstone of our democracy: the peaceful transfer of power to a newly elected government.”

In response to a question from Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., Garland said he would not rule out investigating those who funded, organized, led and otherwise aided the attack on the Capitol.

Merrick Garland Nomination Limbo Encapsulates Complicated Situation

The Senate is still operating in a fraught liminal space, in which Democrats have control of the chamber but Republicans retain power over committees. Negotiations between Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell are dragging on a month into the 117th Congress, and complicating Cabinet confirmations.

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, an independent who caucuses with Democrats, said Monday night he thought an organizing resolution might clear the floor the following day. And a few Republicans thought that was the plan Tuesday morning. But it never materialized.

Were making progress, and were getting close, Schumer told reporters Tuesday, not providing a timeline for when the Senate might act.

One signal that a deal may actually be close was Schumers announcement Tuesday afternoon of committee assignments for the Democratic Conference.

Among the highlights of those assignments: The two Georgia freshmen whose tandem wins tipped the chamber toward Democratic control were assigned to key panels: Jon Ossoff to Judiciary and Raphael Warnock to Agriculture.

They will also both serve on the Banking Committee and a handful of other panels.

Arizona Democrat , a retired Navy pilot and astronaut who won a special election in November, will serve on the Armed Services Committee, as well as on Energy and Natural Resources and on Environment and Public Works.

Read Also: Why Are Republicans Wearing Blue Ties

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f1 · 2 years ago

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F1 owners furious with FIA over presidents inflated valuation comment

Liberty Media-owned Formula One has accused the FIA president, Mohammed Ben Sulayem, of interfering with its commercial rights by publicly questioning a reported $20bn (£16.2bn) valuation of the sport. Ben Sulayem, elected in 2021 to the top job at Formula One’s governing body, took to Twitter on Monday after Bloomberg reported Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) explored a bid for more than that amount. “As the custodians of motorsport, the FIA, as a non-profit organisation, is cautious about alleged inflated price tags of $20bn being put on F1,” Ben Sulayem said on his personal account. “Any potential buyer is advised to apply common sense, consider the greater good of the sport and come with a clear, sustainable plan – not just a lot of money.” He suggested the FIA had a duty to consider the possible negative impact on fans and promoters, who might have to pay more. The comments followed his support this month for Michael Andretti’s bid to enter an 11th team on the grid – a move most existing teams are resistant to because of the dilution of revenues. They also fuel the sense of an emerging turf war between the governing body and a commercial rights holder eager to grow an expanding and increasingly popular championship in new directions. Sky Sports News reported that Formula One’s legal head, Sacha Woodward Hill, and Liberty Media counterpart, Renee Wilm, had sent a joint letter to the FIA accusing the governing body of exceeding its remit. The FIA ultimately owns the rights to the championship but signed them over to former supremo Bernie Ecclestone’s Formula One Management in a 100-year deal in 2001 as part of a separation of commercial and regulatory activities. “The FIA has given unequivocal undertakings that it will not do anything to prejudice the ownership, management and/or exploitation of those rights,” Sky quoted Formula One’s letter as saying. “We consider that those comments, made from the FIA president’s official social media account, interfere with those rights in an unacceptable manner.” The letter, sent to the FIA’s World Motor Sport Council, said the comments risked exposure to “serious regulatory consequences” and the FIA could also be liable. “Any individual or organisation commenting on the value of a listed entity or its subsidiaries, especially claiming or implying possession of inside knowledge while doing so, risks causing substantial damage to the shareholders and investors of that entity,” they said. Sources confirmed to Reuters that the details were correct and teams received copies of the letter on Tuesday from the F1 chief executive, Stefano Domenicali. There was no comment from Formula One and no immediate response from the FIA. via Formula One | The Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/sport/formulaone

#F1 #F1 owners furious with FIA over president’s ‘inflated’ valuation comment #Formula 1

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theliberaltony · 6 years ago

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via FiveThirtyEight

Welcome to a weekly collaboration between FiveThirtyEight and ABC News. With 5,000 people seemingly thinking about challenging President Trump in 2020 — Democrats and even some Republicans — we’re keeping tabs on the field as it develops. Each week, we’ll run through what the potential candidates are up to — who’s getting closer to officially jumping in the ring and who’s getting further away.

The Democratic presidential field maintained its 2019 pace of at least one new entrant per week, with Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., announcing his run last Friday and Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, D-Hawaii, making her previously disclosed campaign official with a kick-off rally in Honolulu.

But in addition to those candidates making formal inroads, a few new names popped up in the periphery of consideration, hints and speculation, including Stacey Abrams and Bill Weld, who are each making their first appearance on this watch list.

Feb. 1-7, 2019

Stacey Abrams Fresh off her State of the Union response, which received strong reviews from her fellow Democrats, the former Georgia gubernatorial candidate didn’t rule out a presidential run during an interview with BuzzFeed News Thursday.

“I’m thinking about everything, I gave myself a deadline of the end of March to make a decision about what I’m going to do next,” Abrams said, adding, “I don’t believe in cutting off opportunities, or forgoing ideas. But often what you find is if you think about something beyond your scope, there’s something in the middle you never thought about.”

Abrams has also been the subject of speculation about a run for U.S. Senate against incumbent Georgia Republican David Perdue. Michael Bennet (D) Asked if he was still considering entering the presidential race, the Colorado senator told 5280 Magazine that he did not have any updates to provide. Joe Biden (D) Biden was the top performer in a Monmouth University poll gauging presidential preferences among registered Democrats. The former vice president received 29 percent support, with the next-closest finisher earning 16 percent. He also earned the highest net favorability rating, with 80 percent of registered Democrats viewing him favorably to 9 percent who viewed him unfavorably.

A CNN poll Wednesday showed that a majority of Democrats — 62 percent — wanted Biden to enter the presidential race.

Politico reported Thursday that Biden was nearing a decision on a run, and was reaching out to Capitol Hill allies including Sens. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., Bob Casey, D-Pa., and Chris Coons, D-Del., as well as Rep. Jim Clyburn, D-S.C.

On Tuesday, during a private lunch with television anchors prior to the State of the Union, President Donald Trump reportedly described Biden as “dumb” and said he hoped to run against him.

“Biden was never very smart. He was a terrible student. His gaffes are unbelievable. When I say something that you might think is a gaffe, it’s on purpose; it’s not a gaffe. When Biden says something dumb, it’s because he’s dumb,” the president said, according to sources cited by the New York Times. Michael Bloomberg (D) The former New York City mayor decried the subsidies provided to Amazon to attract it into building its much-publicized HQ2 in Long Island City, Queens as unnecessary, aligning him with left-leaning city representatives, including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., who herself has been critical of billionaires like Bloomberg.

On Friday, Bloomberg will deliver the keynoteaddress at the Americans for Immigrant Justice’s 23rd annual awards dinner in Miami. Cory Booker (D) Last Friday, Booker entered the presidential race with the release of a video describing a platform of optimism and a slew of media interviews that touched on his career path from Newark, New Jersey councilman to U.S. senator.

“I think a lot of folks are beginning to feel that the forces that are tearing us apart in this country are stronger than the forces that tie us together. I don’t believe that,” Booker said in an interview on “The View.” “So, I’m running to restore our sense of common purpose, to focus on the common pain that we have all over this country.”

On Tuesday, the New Jersey senator, a lifelong bachelor, confirmed that he has a girlfriend, or, “a boo,” as he put it.

This weekend Booker, who also picked up an endorsement from fellow New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez shortly after his announcement, heads to Iowa for six events on Friday and Saturday, before continuing on to South Carolina on Sunday for three more events continuing into Monday. Sherrod Brown (D) Brown told CNN Tuesday that a decision on a presidential campaign is “probably” coming in March. On Wednesday, the Ohio senator received the support of Jim Obergefell, who filed the lawsuit that led to the 2015 Supreme Court decision guaranteeing the right of same-sex couples to marry. Obergefell called Brown “one of the best advocates” for the LGBT community in the Senate.

After touring Iowa last weekend, Brown continues his “Dignity of Work” listening tour this weekend in New Hampshire, where he will stop in Hampton, Berlin, Laconia, Concord and Manchester for a variety of roundtables and meet-and-greets and to attend the New Hampshire Young Democrats’ 2019 Granite Slate Awards. Steve Bullock (D) Politico reported last Friday that Bullock is likely to wait until the end of Montana’s legislative session on May 1 before making a decision on a presidential run. After describing the governor’s bipartisan efforts in the Big Sky State, Politico quoted a former Montana Republican state representative who said of a potential Bullock campaign: “I’d go so far as to say he wouldn’t suck.” Pete Buttigieg (D) The South Bend, Indiana mayor defended his White House run at the age of 37, saying that the job was “a leap for anybody,” in an interview with “This Week” Sunday. Buttigieg further drew a line of differentiation between the Medicare-for-all ideas being touted by a number of Democratic presidential hopefuls, saying that, unlike Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., he didn’t feel as if the idea necessitated the end of the private insurance industry.

This weekend, Buttigieg visits Iowa for the first time since launching his presidential campaign. His trip includes meet-and-greets in Ames, Grinnell, Ankeny and Johnston over the course of Friday and Saturday. Julian Castro (D) Appearing on “Jimmy Kimmel Live” Tuesday night, Castro said he wasn’t interested in being another Democrat’s running mate should he not capture the nomination for himself, explaining that he’s “been there and done that last time,” in reference to his 2016 vetting by Hillary Clinton.

Last weekend, the Hispanic-American Castro told New York magazine that he anticipated that the presidential campaign would be centered around immigration because Trump uses the issues “as a political ploy to drum up his base” and that “he’s convinced that’s the only way he can win this election,” but even so, does not “underestimate” Trump. John Delaney (D) Delaney is opening his first office in New Hampshire next Monday, WMUR reported, which will coincide with a visit by the former Maryland congressman, who will stick around to campaign in the state early in the week. The trip follows one taken by Delaney to Utah on Wednesday to speak at the Sorenson Winter Innovation Summit in Salt Lake City. Tulsi Gabbard (D) Gabbard officially launched her presidential campaign last weekend with a Honolulu rally, before running into a number of controversies later in the week, including receiving the unwanted endorsement of former Ku Klux Klan grand wizard David Duke, who he has long admired the Hawaii senator for her foreign policy positions.

“I have strongly denounced David Duke’s hateful views and his so-called ‘support’ multiple times in the past, and reject his support,” Gabbard responded to the New York Post.

She then defended her oft-criticized 2017 meeting with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad by telling MSNBC Wednesday that, “Assad is not the enemy of the United States because Syria does not pose a direct threat to the United States.” Kirsten Gillibrand (D) Gillibrand toured New Hampshire last weekend, with five stops in two days, and revealed to the Concord Monitor that she was on the verge of hiring staff in the state.

Though the New York senator has downplayed her moderate past since entering the presidential race in January, she pledged to “find common ground” with Republicans while in New Hampshire, though reiterated that she was angered by Trump’s actions to divide the country.

During Trump’s State of the Union Tuesday, Gillibrand had a viral moment featuring her exasperated response to Trump’s speech, off of which she later tried to fundraise, which may or may not have been in violation of congressional rules.

On Wednesday, fellow New York Democrat, Rep. Carolyn Maloney, was pessimistic about Gillibrand’s presidential chances, telling the New York Daily News she didn’t feel Gillibrand could win in Midwestern states like Ohio. Maloney later partially walked back the comments, issuing a statement noting that Gillibrand is an “outstanding Senator and would be an exceptional President” and that she was “simply commenting on the importance of winning back previously blue states and having a strategy for doing so.” Kamala Harris (D) Harris delivered a preemptive response to the State of the Union Tuesday, criticizing Trump’s “insincere appeals to unity.”

“I want everyone to remember this: The strength of our union has never been found in the walls we build,” the California senator said.

During a conversation with historically black colleges and universities leaders Thursday, Harris was critical of the way gender has played a role in the Senate, citing the Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearings as an instance during which she was treated differently than her male colleagues.

A Quinnipiac University poll released Wednesday found enthusiasm for a potential Harris nomination to be nearly equal to that of Biden, with 58 and 60 percent of respondents, respectively, saying they would be excited for the two to emerge victorious from the primaries. John Hickenlooper (D) Hickenlooper visited South Carolina Tuesday and Wednesday, where he conversed with voters and spoke to the state’s Hospital Association. Speaking to reporters, the former Colorado governor said that voters were interested in a candidate’s record of achievement, something that has become the centerpiece of his stump speech ahead of a potential announcement. Eric Holder (D) Next Tuesday, Holder will visit Des Moines for a speech at Drake University’s Harkin Institute for Public Policy & Citizen Engagement. Jay Inslee (D) Inslee told CNBC this week that a presidential campaign decision is coming “in weeks, not months” and continues to pitch himself as the potential candidate most focused on environmental issues.

“Both by experience and passion and commitment, I have had a long, demonstrated vision statement for economic growth around clean energy that is unique amongst potential candidates.” Inslee said. Amy Klobuchar (D) Klobuchar will make “a little announcement” in Minneapolis Sunday, she said in a video posted to her social media accounts Wednesday, one that will reveal her decision regarding a presidential run, she earlier explained on MSNBC Tuesday.

Minnesota Public Radio reported Monday that, should Klobuchar enter the presidential race, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz will extend her an endorsement.

“If Sen. Klobuchar chooses to go, I’m with her,” said Walz, a former member of the U.S. House, adding, “It’s in our best interest to have multiple choices out there, but I would argue that as more Americans get to know Amy Klobuchar, she’ll prove to be the person that they may want to get with.”

Klobuchar was the subject of a scathing HuffPost report Wednesday that included claims she mistreats her Senate staff, frequently describing their work as “the worst,” leading to high turnover in her office. Some former staffers pushed back in the story, arguing that the senator had high standards and suggested that male senators would not face such criticism for similar behavior. Mitch Landrieu (D) Former New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu all but ruled out a 2020 presidential run in an interview on CNN’s “New Day” Wednesday morning, but added a “never say never” caveat.

Landrieu, who released a book last year and has been outspoken in his criticism of Trump in a number of television appearances to start 2019, cited the influx of “great candidates in the race,” and said that the race was “getting filled up.”

As for potential candidates who he felt operate in a similar lane to himself, he cited Michael Bloomberg, Joe Biden and Beto O’Rourke, and additionally had high praise for Stacey Abrams‘ State of the Union response Tuesday night, saying he felt she would make a “really good candidate.” Terry McAuliffe (D) Though he still has not reached a final decision, the former Virginia governor told CNN last weekend that he’d “like to” run for president and said, as he has before, that a decision would come by the end of March. Seth Moulton Following a brief appearance before the Bedford, New Hampshire Democrats last weekend, Moulton toldreporters that he was “not here to talk about 2020,” and instead focused on “spend[ing] the next two years making sure President Trump wasn’t reelected.” He conceded, however, that he was “not sure what that means for me.” Beto O’Rourke (D) O’Rourke admitted to “thinking about running for president” during a conversation with Oprah Winfrey in New York City Tuesday and said, of the prospect of helping to unify the country, “I’m so excited at the prospect of being able to play that role.” He said he would announce his decision about a run “before the end of the month.”

Pressed on what was preventing him to declare a candidacy on the spot, the former Texas congressman said that his family was an important consideration.

“For the last seven years, my family hasn’t seen me,” he said. “That’s the far more important responsibility.”

A New York Times profile Wednesday detailed O’Rourke’s mid-20s, which he spent living in New York. The newspaper described him as “adrift,” comparing his “quarter-life crisis” of soul-searching to his ongoing contemplation of a presidential campaign and recent travels through the country’s interior. Bernie Sanders (D) Though he has given unilateral responses to the State of the Union in the past, Sanders faced criticism this year over the belief that he was distracting from Democrats‘ official responses, delivered by Stacey Abrams and Xavier Becerra — though he did describe Abrams’ address as “extremely effective” at the top of his speech.

In his remarks, Sanders called attention to the struggles of the nation’s middle class and took issue with Trump’s avoidance of climate change and other progressive priorities. Howard Schultz (D) The former Starbucks CEO continued to rebut the criticism that his potential run as an independent could pave the way for Trump’s reelection, explaining that he wanted to pay forward the success he was able to achieve and help others do the same, previewing a theme he would touch on in an appearance at Purdue University Thursday.

Ralph Nader, whose own third-party presidential run in 2000 is still blamed by some Democrats for preventing Al Gore from winning that year’s election, wrote for Time this week to both defend and attack Schultz’s moves, arguing that “‘spoiler’ charges” constituted “political bigotry,” but that the billionaire’s policy positions were closer to those of the GOP, rather than being centrist, as he claims.

Next week, Schultz will participate in a CNN town hall in Texas on Tuesday, before continuing on his book tour in Philadelphia on Wednesday and Washington, D.C. on Thursday. Elizabeth Warren (D) Warren again faced backlash this week for her past claims of Native American heritage. After the Washington Post revealed Tuesday that the Massachusetts senator wrote on her State Bar of Texas registration card in 1986 that she was “American Indian.”

“I can’t go back,” Warren told the Post in response. “But I am sorry for furthering confusion on tribal sovereignty and tribal citizenship and harm that resulted.”

Questioned further about the situation on Wednesday on Capitol Hill, Warren explained that the claim was a result of her “family story” and again apologized.

“When I was growing up in Oklahoma, I learned about my family the same way most people do. My brothers and I learned from our mom and our dad and our brothers and our sisters. They were family stories,” she told reporters. “But that said, there really is an important distinction of tribal citizenship. I’m not a member of a tribe. I have apologized for not being more sensitive to that. It’s an important thing.”

The controversy arose just days before Warren was set to make a major announcement Saturday in Lawrence, Massachusetts, before embarking on a campaign swing through the early voting states of Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada. Bill Weld (R) Weld, the former Republican Massachusetts governor and 2016 Libertarian Party vice presidential candidate, re-registered as a GOP voter, according to the Massachusetts secretary of state’s online voter registration status lookup.

The Boston Globe earlier reported that Weld was strongly considering a Republican primary challenge to Trump.

#IFTTT #FiveThirtyEight #politics #538 #Adam Kelsey

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cryptoevent · 4 years ago

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Bitcoin nerves, Tesla told to dump crypto, NFT madness

Every Saturday, Hodler Digest helps you stay on top of all the important news of the week. The best (and worst) quotes, rules and highlights, predictions and more – one week on Cointelegraph in one link.

The best stories of the week

Bitcoin traders are concerned now that the price remains below $50,000.

After reaching a low of $43,500 last Sunday, Bitcoin made a comeback and managed to reach $52,000 on Wednesday. There has been some optimism that the correction is over and that BTC can return to temporary highs.

Unfortunately, the best laid plans of mice and humans often go awry. Fast forward to this weekend, and Bitcoin is once again struggling to break through the $50,000 mark – a psychologically important milestone. The nerves are starting to work.

A drop below the recent low of $46,000 could open the door for further declines and threaten the upward trend that has been underway for nearly a year …. , at least in the short term. The pseudonymous trader Rekt Capital estimates that BTC could reach a bottom between $38,000 and $45,000 if this level is not maintained.

Traders are now beginning to speculate that Bitcoin may continue to trade sideways. The sluggish macroeconomic environment, dominated by rising bond yields and falling technology stocks, certainly doesn’t help.

On the other hand,there are always measures to ward off the gloom…. as long as everything is in order. TheGlassnode Reserve Risk indicator suggests that the BTC rally is still in the – phase from start to finish after this week’s setback. Oh, that’s great. Then there’s nothing to worry about.

analyst advises Tesla to buy back Bitcoins as shares plummet in

Tesla is now under pressure to sell its $1.5 billion stake in Bitcoin. Since the electric car maker announced the acquisition of its cryptography business, TSLA shares have fallen 30.8%.

Gary Black, former CEO of Aegon Asset Management, tweeted that Tesla would generate positive momentum if it switched to cryptocurrency, adding: Very unlikely, but the shareholders would be very helpful.

The price correction of Bitcoinalso affected MicroStrategy, a business intelligence company with over 91,000 BTC. In less than a month, the MSTR share price has fallen from to 52.8% .

The company doesn’t seem too concerned. MicroStrategy bought another 205 BTC this week, spending $10 million to coincide with the latest drop.

Although the software company began investing its existing assets in BTC in 2020, when Bitcoin was trading at around $ $10,000, recent purchases have yet to bear fruit.

Les Rois de Léon release an album titled NFT

Buckle up… We have so much news from the NFT. One of the most exciting songs of the week was the announcement of the release of Kings of Leon’s eighth album – and that’s just a taste.

Three types of TNFs are offered, the rarest of which offers lifetime front row seats to Kings of Leon concerts, a private driver, and the opportunity to hang out with the band before shows.

The excitement in the TNF industry doesn’t stop there. The rarest of them all, Homer Pepe, was tested this week for .205 ETH …. which, at the time of writing, is worth 323 000 $ . Meanwhile, the NFT, consisting of 100 individual works by 100 different artists, sold out at Rarible in minutes.

Aavegotchis – the NFTs inspired by the Tamagotchi devices that were so fashionable in the late 1990s and early 2000s – were broken in less than a minute. And while NBA Top Shot sales continue to rise, Michael Rubin, CEO of Fanatics, said: It’s almost too crazy what’s happening now.

As if that wasn’t crazy enough, Banksy’s original work was burned and turned into NFT. Ironically, the piece is called Idiots and is about buyers at an art auction selling a piece that says: I can’t believe you idiots actually buy this crap.

Tether has been hit with a ransom demand for 500 BTC, but says he will not pay.

Tros, who is still recovering from his confrontation with the New York Attorney General, is really struggling to rest at the moment.

This week hackers threatened to release secret company documents that would have belonged to Tether…. would have belonged unless you paid a ransom of 500 CTBs, a whopping $23.8 million at the time.

Tooser announced the event on Twitter, under the title We Don’t Pay.

The deadline has passed, but it’s still unclear if the extortionists are just trying to get their hands on the money, or if it’s all part of a larger effort to undermine Terah and the rest of the Bitcoin ecosystem.

In any case, those who seek to harm the Tether are becoming increasingly desperate, the society adds.

No prohibition of cryptography in India: Minister of Finance provides a very calibrated view

There is a new twist in the Will saga, isn’t there, about the proposed ban on cryptocurrency in India.

Indian Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said Saturday that reports that the government is seeking a total ban on cryptocurrency are exaggerated. He stressed that the rules would not be as stringent as had been previously reported and that the authorities were determined to adopt a very calibrated approach.

The comments will certainly be useful to crypto entrepreneurs and investors in the world’s second most populous country after years of uncertainty.

At one time, India was considering introducing prison terms of up to 10 years for those caught trading cryptocurrencies – in addition to a hefty fine. The country’s central bank also banned banks from offering services to crypto entrepreneurs, which led to the collapse of several of these companies. These restrictions were sensationally overturned by the Supreme Court last year.

Sitharaman’s recent comments contradict a Bloomberg report last month that said crypto assets will soon be completely banned in India.

Winners and losers

At the end of the week bitcoin is $48,445.86, ether is $1,607.45 and XRP is $0.46. Total market capitalization is 1,484,740 419,357.

Among the first 100 cryptocurrencies, the top three altcoins of the week are the Chiliz, the Enjin and the Flow. The three best altcoiners of the week are: Cardano, 1inch and Stellar.

For more information on cryptocurrency prices, don’t forget to read Cointelegraph’s market analysis.

Most memorable quotes

You have to look for relative strength when others are weak. Global Macro sold out yesterday, and BTC doesn’t care.

Kyle Davis, co-founder of Three Arrows Capital

Bitcoin is dramatically opposed to macroeconomics.

Lex Moscow, Director of Moscow Capital

The fact that Bitcoin remains strong, even as the GBTC acts as a resistance group to slow it down, is very reassuring and shows me that the global story, the story of accelerated adoption, remains intact.

Chad Steinglass, CrossTower Business Manager

I think there is a tremendous amount of value being created, but also so many people that I don’t think everyone will succeed.

Michael Rubin, Chairman of the Board of Fanatics

This is the beginning, but I think this is how people will leave their mark in the future: If they sell for $100,000 each, they only make $100,000.

Josh Katz, CEO of Yellow Heart

I think Reed Hastings is a very innovative man, he has a lot of creativity and I think he still holds the reins of Netflix, so I think this could be the next big project.

Time Draper, Series Investor

What we see built today with cryptography is just a proof of concept. As the technology improves, becomes cheaper and faster, there will be new applications and maybe even something that will replace what we now know as cryptography.

Cuban Mark, billionaire

I consider HOMERPEPE to be the most important TNF in the history of art because its sale in 2018 influenced many artists of original cryptography to believe that we can align our art with the work by creating a market and a belief around this new technology.

Matt Kane, artist

Is Bitcoin a currency? The property? Active? Maybe I’ll do all of the above with a 3% portfolio.

Kevin O’Leary, Shark Tank Investor

Bitcoin has earned almost 200% (almost triple your money) every year for the past 10 years, *shortly*.

CaseBitcoin

We are sending a clear message to the whole sector: Either you play by the rules or we lock you up.

Leticia James, Attorney General of New York

Those trying to harm Tether are becoming increasingly desperate.

Cable

There are many risks and obstacles to Bitcoin’s progress. But when you weigh these potential obstacles against opportunities, you come to the conclusion that Bitcoin is at an inflection point.

Citi

Outlook for week

The price of Bitcoinwill be infinite – Kraken CEO

Hodler’s Digest has predicted pretty high bitcoin prices over the years – $ $500,000 $ here, $ $1 million $ there. Determined not to back down, the Kraken’s CEO has gone on the offensive…. The prediction that BTC would cost infinitely.

Jesse Powell believes that one day humanity will simply stop pricing Bitcoin in U.S. dollars – he told Bloomberg that a price of $0.9 to $0.9 million is appropriate 10 years from now.

Maybe the research of the company he runs is a little more realistic. Kraken’s latestanalysis suggests Bitcoin could reach its next peak between $75,000 and $306,000.

FUD of week

Arthur Hayes and Ben Delo of BitMEX agree to surrender to US authorities

The former CEO of encrypted derivatives exchange BitMEX is due to meet with US authorities next month.

Arthur Hayes and his fellow directors are accused by the US Department of Justice and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission of violating the Bank Secrecy Act.

The transcripts of the virtual court hearing show that the 6. April in Hawaii to travel to the United States – six months after his escape.

McAfee is charged in a New York State court with cryptography fraud.

For John McAfee, the charges are piling up. The pioneer of monetary cryptography and Internet security is now accused of fraud and conspiracy to launder money. The allegations relate to two systems where cryptocurrency was fraudulently advertised to investors.

Prior to today’s news, McAfee was already facing accusations of tax evasion and initial coin offerings by US regulators, which he allegedly announced for a fee without properly informing the public.

After fleeing the U.S. government in 2019, McAfee was arrested in Spain in October 2020.

Dev says Meerkat’s $31 million financial abuse was a test and the funds will be returned.

The alarm was sounded this week when Meerkat Finance, a decentralized financial protocol based on Binance’s smart channel, lost $31 million – just hours after its launch.

The team first claimed to be victims of exploitation, but then deleted all of its social media feeds. Because of the nature of the crime, some people think it’s a cowboy scam.

But there may also be good news for the victims of this exploit, which is one of the most significant in DeFi’s short history. – Developer Meerkat Finance published an article on the newly created Telegram channel, revealing that the exploit was a test of user greed and subjectivity – adding that the team was preparing to compensate all those affected.

Best coin features

DeFi who? NFTs are the new heads for cryptoblock.

NFT picks up where DeFi left off, and data suggests asset symbolization will dominate through 2021.

Crypto Pepe: What kind of a frog is that?

Cointelegraph magazine interviews BarnBridge founder Tyler Ward, who accidentally created the craze for Pepe the Frog NFT memes.

Hype Price: Billionaire cryptocurrency companies on the rise

Songs that hit the nail on the head: Analysts and industry experts have looked at encryption companies like Coinbase and Kraken, which are valued in the billions.

Related Tags:

Privacy settings,How Search works,new cryptocurrency,cryptocurrency prices,is bitcoin safe,bit coin price

#Crypto #Bitcoin

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backstorywithdanalewis · 4 years ago

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Digital Monetary Revolution On Back Story with Dana Lewis podcast https://www.buzzsprout.com/1016881/6798991

Dana Lewis - Host: (00:30) Hi everyone. And welcome to another edition of backstory. I'm Dana Lewis in this edition, a digital revolution driven in part by COVID-19, but there are many other factors digital because it's not a coin or a bill that you carry in your wallet or your purse, but an electronic holding, maybe on your phone or your computer, you already may use payment applications for some of your shopping and bill pay. But at lightning speed governments are adopting electronic currencies. They can track and control and off the government grid. Cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin are soaring in value on this backstory. Can you trust it? Will you use it? I have no doubt. And we talked to digital currency experts about the future and the China analyst, because China is rolling out digital currency. As we speak in wild, they say it's to get away from the U S dollar. It's probably more about tracking every aspect of how its citizens behave in the new digital marketplace of the world. All right. In London now nickel digital asset management, uh, builds itself as Europe's leading digital asset management company. And I'm joined by Anatoly Crachilov and Michael Hall. I Hi guys, good morning. How are you? Good, good to be here. Bloomberg recently wrote we're living through a monetary revolution. So multifaceted that few people comprehend the full extent that the technical technological transformation of the internet is driving the revolution. The pandemic of 2020 has accelerated it. What do they mean, Michael? Do you want to take a shot at it? Michael Hall/ Nickel Digital: (02:17) Well, I think we're seeing a new form of money. If you look at the evolution of money, we started off bartering, sheep and cows. We moved to coins and or seashells maybe before that coin, some, we used to move to paper, money, and paper money was tied to gold. And then it was that link was cut. And when paper, money departed from the gold standard, it became fit money that central banks could conjure up with, uh, you know, turning the printing process a bit faster, or now they just put more zeros in a digital bank account. And as a reaction to that, we've seen digital currency starts off with the com with limited supply. So that I think what's really, what's really interesting. COVID has kind of forced people away from physical cash into using contactless cash. And the next evolution of that is using a blockchain based cash Dana Lewis - Host: (03:10) And Anatoly why is it, uh, completely taken off Bitcoin, you know, has risen. I don't know what it is today. You can give me the price today, but I mean, it's, it's essentially gone up like 139% year to date. Anatoly Crachilov/Nickel Digital: (03:21) That's correct. Yes. It's uh, 18, 18,000 plus essentially I would say 2020, the year of COVID to the grid, the entire kind of important evolution in digital currencies specifically, there was a sequence of events, uh, COVID triggers, mass unemployment, mass unemployment triggers a response by central bank, which can be summarized by flood market with money. And that's exactly what central bank did. Dana Lewis - Host: (03:50) Everybody's printing money, every nation that's trying to get itself out of it. The financial disaster they're in are, are printing money, correct? Anatoly Crachilov/Nickel Digital: (03:58) You have roughly $11 trillion printed over the last 10 months by a major economists around the world. And certainly if you look at that at the very least, you, by the way, you appreciate why central banks do that. But as holder of capital, you have to preserve this capital, right? And your concern is how to avoid inflation, which started to loom at some stage and currency debasement, which inevitably will hit. And we all know that every single FIAR project in the world being a kind of paper money, right, ultimately ends at zero. So kind of intrinsic value is zero. This paper and given the central bank so easily can inflate this people, investors are looking for hard assets and your classical heart assets would be real estate gold, will these kind of overcrowded traits. And then suddenly you come with Bitcoin as a new form of hard asset. And specifically within BTC, you have a scarcity element similar to gold. There is a certain number of coins ever to be printed. And the schedule, the issue and schedule is very precise. I can tell you exactly how many say Bitcoin's going to be there in the system in say March, uh, 2042. Can you tell me how many us dollars would have been circulated? Of course not because there is no, Dana Lewis - Host: (05:29) Probably probably a lot more than there are now because they're just going to keep printing them. Anatoly Crachilov/Nickel Digital: (05:32) So you can say directionality is clear. They're going to be more dollars around with BTC. You have this scarcity element and that would drive the price up. And essentially we've seen this unfolding demand, which to some extent was triggered by forward-looking investors, such as Paul Tudor Jones letter, uh, bill Miller and all of them. They look for a new to protect capital. Bitcoin became one of the doors, Dana Lewis - Host: (06:00) Michael, the, uh, if I can get Michael to jump in here. So, you know, Nouriel, Roubini, Roubini, uh, the New York university economist wrote in, um, 2018. He told CNBC it's the biggest bubble in human history talking about Bitcoin. Uh, and that the price would crush to zero. Then eight months later in congressional testimony, he said, Bitcoin's the mother of all scams. It's a quote shitcoin unquote, uh, and then fast forward to 2020. And now he has changed his story. Uh, and he's talking about while, you know, it's, it's not going to be easily DC-based, uh, and that there there's value there. So I would say that's a pretty big step back, but, but just not Roubini, but mainstream finance, mainstream banks, that would kind of turn their nose up a digital currency. Now, I guess just mainly because of demand also their customers want to want to invest in it. Michael Hall/ Nickel Digital: (07:00) Yes. I mean, banks are customer led and they follow the money. And if people want to invest in a product, they will meet that demand. Dana Lewis - Host: (07:08) And is that product now more credible than it was even a year ago? And why do you think? So? Michael Hall/ Nickel Digital: (07:14) I think it's attracting more institutional interest of the names. People mentioned. They were the original, you know, the, the, the leaders, uh, the Pathfinders in the hedge fund industry. And they started hedge funds. People like Paul Tudor Jones and Stanley Druckenmiller when hedge funds weren't institutional businesses and a pension fund would never, they was pension funds were still in stocks and bonds fast forward, 30 years, pension funds and insurance companies invest in hedge funds that, which they didn't do 30 years ago. So these people are innovative. These people are leaders, they're innovators, and they are investing in Bitcoin now. And in 30 years time, maybe sooner pension funds and insurance companies will be investing in Bitcoin as well. Dana Lewis - Host: (07:59) Electronic payment platforms, I'm stunned. I mean, you guys know these numbers quite well, but, uh, you know, $40 trillion in transactions through Ali pay and we chat pay, we're talking about China now, uh, which is leading in terms of the development of digital currency so far. Um, so the, the amount of transactions are huge. Do you see a difference between the boom in Bitcoin and, and digital currency and these currencies now that governments are talking about bringing in and they've done so on an experimental basis in China? Anatoly Crachilov/Nickel Digital: (08:36) Yep. Well, uh, you're absolutely right. There is the whole evolution of central bank digital currency. So-called, uh, to some extent it was triggered by a 2020. And if you look in the us, the whole model of, uh, distributing certain, uh, financial aid to ultimate population, right, goes through commercial banks. And it's not necessarily the most efficient way because in the U S only 29% of these financial aid ended up in consumption and other four to five and the top in saving and in our 40 to five and up in repaying, various form of debt, like credit card debts, and so on. So from the point of view of stimulating the economy, it wasn't really that efficient only 29% when consumption now in China or to the, to the, to in contrast, there has been an experiment which was run earlier this year. And the idea was a certain number of people were given, uh, what's called airdrop. Anatoly Crachilov/Nickel Digital: (09:41) When you got certain amount of cash, say a thousand dollars on your equivalent of $30, each person, whatever is the amount, the idea was kind of, you can spend this, uh, amount of free cash given by the government in the next three months on a certain type of goods. Can you fraud in stock exchange? Nope. There is no purpose of that. Can you save them? Nope, because you're going to expand them three months and essentially they forced population to stimulate certain areas of the economy. And that may be this precision, which kind of classical monitoring system, ALEKS and central bank digital currencies can provide Michael. Michael Hall/ Nickel Digital: (10:24) So I think central bank currencies are very interesting, but they suffer from like three basic flaws. One is that, um, they don't stop the central banks printing, printing money in the same way. They print physical money. They can print digital money as well. They can just multiply the bits on the computer drive and they print more, more money. Secondly, they can, these currencies enable the central banks to do things they weren't able to do with paper money. One of these is negative interest rates. So are you seeing that, you know, interest rates on bonds have gone negative, but it's very difficult to have negative interest rates. Because if your bank's going to charge you a negative interest rate, you take all your money out and you just put that money underneath the, uh, underneath your mattress. And it keeps the same value. So that, that's how you get around that issue. Michael Hall/ Nickel Digital: (11:10) Um, with, uh, the third floor is, is a privacy. Now I'm not saying that everyone should be trading like privacy coins like Monero, but I think people expect that they have a level of privacy from the government, and it's not big brother where the government has a television and your TV camera in your living room. And they're not looking over your shoulder when you're using a bank account, you may not be doing illegal things, such, just buying drugs, but you might be buying a birthday present for your girlfriend was a question, Michael. Yeah, exactly. So, so you might be buying a processor, a birthday present for your girlfriend. You might, might not want her to know how much you've spent on it and what, and where it was purchased. So people expect a level of privacy with their money and cash gives them that privacy. And the question is what should digital cash gives them that? And that we have to strike a balance between having people being able to money on the drugs, which we would not want to have happen, but we also expect to not personalize a certain amount of money we can use to spend without the influence and knowledge. Dana Lewis - Host: (12:09) It's an interesting range of balance that you talk about, right? Because China, they are absolutely tracking every single purchase and they know exactly what everybody's doing. And it's the ultimate big brother through the use of, of their new digital currency. And then, like for instance, the Soufan center came out today and they said, cryptocurrencies are potentially a cover for a lot of elicit businesses. It's not the first time we've heard that. Right. But they talked about Hamas Qaeda, the Islamic state, uh, the, the, the, uh, U S intelligence agencies are trying to track digital currencies and Bitcoin and different coins that have been used by illicit organizations. So what's the middle ground here as this matures and develops and more mainstream investors are involved in it. What's the balance between, you know, kind of big brother and the bandit down the road that uses cryptocurrency to, to do, uh, to do bad things. Michael Hall/ Nickel Digital: (13:04) Okay. So, so we hit those arguments a lot and the more money has been laundered and used to finance terrorist activities using us dollar bills, but no one is proposing banning the U S dollar bill. Dana Lewis - Host: (13:16) No, but they are proposing tracking the accounts and tracking the transfers, right. Not proposing, but they do do it. Michael Hall/ Nickel Digital: (13:21) Okay. They should get rid of the a hundred dollar bill. The Germany should get rid of the European union should get rid of the 500 Euro bill. I mean, if that's, if you want to launder money, that's, that's the place to go, right? Your $500. And then the Swiss have a 1000 Frank bill. I mean, those are the ultimate money laundering tools, Bitcoin isn't, by the way, anyone who tries to launder money using Bitcoin isn't for surprise, because every transaction is publicly recorded and accessible to anyone. Who's got an internet connection. If you have a browser window connect to the internet, you can put in a blockchain address and you can see every single transaction that's gone through that address. Now there have, there have been some digital currencies, uh, designed for privacy, which we don't treat him. And the only real use case for those is that. So that's why we don't trade them. But it's a matter for the regulators. It's a matter for the central government to figure that out. The beauty is that if the government acts with two heavier hand, there are tools that exist for people to circumvent them. And just as the people in China who wants to use the internet, they can use the VPN. And so rather than have to read the Google search results filtered by the Chinese communist party, they can use the VPN and find out what Google really thinks. Dana Lewis - Host: (14:35) And I totally would you just look, as we wrap this up, guys, would you just look down the road, uh, and tell me, where do you see this going now? Because now you have governments that are getting into digital currency. You have investment companies that, and, and very reputable ones that before didn't want anything to do with digital currency. Now they're slowly opening the door because their clients want it. Where are we? Two and three and five years. Anatoly Crachilov/Nickel Digital: (15:03) Yep. We're being asked. Uh, one of the questions is whether the central bank digital currencies can distort to some extent or compete with, uh, Bitcoin as the pure cryptocurrency. And in my view, they cannot because Bitcoin is an asset with no monetary discretion, right? Nobody can influence the patient schedule while central bank currencies are there for completely different reasons. One of them is increased transparency of all the transactions, essentially you, as we discussed, eliminate any remaining privacy, but that allows States to create this kind of extract, valuable behavioral information about every single client, a customer, and ultimately allows a 4g to better manage the economy. Because what they're gaining is the real time spending updates for the whole economy and becomes what they're getting this kind of on demand, monetary policy, which they in a very precise manner now manage the economy by injecting money in various sectors. So for that purpose, it's completely different, uh, uh, use cases, right? From big investment point of view, digital central bank, digital currency are not attractive. You cannot really preserve your wealth. Dana Lewis - Host: (16:21) Why, why do it then, like, why are there calls? I mean, I know like the, the former national security advisor of Britain has just come out and said that Britain should have its own digital currency soon. So Anatoly Crachilov/Nickel Digital: (16:32) From the government perspective, as I just mentioned, that's a beautiful instrument to control micromanage the economy, right? So you have these very, uh, finely tuned spending, which you cannot observe on the individual level. You can transfer to individuals rather than you give money to commercial banks and the commercial banks push them into economy. And as we discussed in a not very efficient manner. So from the state point of view, having digital currents makes total sense. Now from investor investors, point of view, investing in digital currency makes no sense if you need store of value, you have to revert to an independent currency, which is one of them would be Bitcoin. And from here, Dana Lewis - Host: (17:18) Just because it's more navigate, not navigable, because there are limited assets like in Bitcoin. Anatoly Crachilov/Nickel Digital: (17:25) Exactly. As you know, there are 21 points ever to be issued of which 88% has already been issued. The balance of 12% will be issued over the next 120 years in a super predictable manner. So that's why you want to get exposure to that hard asset. What are we going to be for years, five years from now? I believe it will become part of institutional allocations as we have today, fixed income equities. Dana Lewis - Host: (17:50) So we'll be allocation, good digital assets. It will not, it will be kind of two percentage points. One, two [inaudible] fetal 5%, but there is a significant, important role. It's a diversifier of the portfolios and it creates efficiency on the institutional portfolio level improves your returns. We filed really boosting your risk, Michael, last word to you. Michael Hall/ Nickel Digital: (18:15) So one of the issues that the central banks had when they printed money is they gave it to all the banks and the banks went out and bought stocks and they Geoff basis a billionaire or sorry, made him more of a billionaire even richer. And it just increased wealth inequality. One of the benefits of central bank digital currencies is they, as Anatolia says, they can be very precise and targeting who gets the money and what the money gets spent on. And that's a much more efficient way of doing quantitative easing. They're just giving it to bank. So they have bigger balance sheets and the stock market goes up. So this is digital currencies, central bank, digital currencies enable them to actually give money, spend money where they want it and do that money printing in the, in the right way. Dana Lewis - Host: (18:57) You mean like for instance, like right now in this crisis where they're saying to people that, you know, people who are not being employed or unemployed, or, or who need, uh, some support during the COVID 19, they would be able to actually send a directly to a family or a person, and then they would allocate it only for food rent, something like that. Michael Hall/ Nickel Digital: (19:18) Exactly. A lot of those, uh, furlough checks that went out, went directly into people's bank accounts and that stimulated the real economy. It didn't make the stock market go higher in, in the first case, but it did stimulate the real economy. Dana Lewis - Host: (19:33) All right, guys, from nickel digital asset management, thank you so much. And the Tony Graciela and Michael Hall, Michael Hall/ Nickel Digital: (19:39) Thank you, Dana. A real pleasure thing this morning, Dana Lewis - Host: (19:47) Joining us now from Berlin. Germany is Max Kiernfelt, who is an analyst with Merics in Berlin and Merrick's is the marketure Institute for Chinese study. And they, uh, they analyzed sort of anything out of China and all things. And max, uh, has written a brilliant article in, uh, or co-authored a brilliant article in the diplomat, uh, on China and its digital currency. Hi max. Hi. So give us a background a little bit here. Some 5,000 people in Shenzen saw their phones light up in October, and they got a read on envelope digitally, which gave him about $30. Max Kiernfelt/ Merics: (20:24) That's right. So the Chinese government is launching a new digital currency, which is called digital currency, economic, electronic payments, which is perhaps not the most exciting name. So the idea is to use something, something similar to Bitcoin to create a virtual currency so that the, the paper renminbi, it has a digital, um, correspondence or a digital version of itself. And they've been testing this project in several different cities like [inaudible], and it started with this lottery where they're just giving money away, but some, uh, some government employees in some cities have also received the, uh, part of their paycheck in this, in this new currency. Dana Lewis - Host: (21:10) So it's really look, this is a very interesting shift for a lot of different reasons, right? And I want to, you know, take you through some of that, but, um, the people's bank of China said that this will make the, the RMB more popular around the globe. Are they trying to replace the U S dollar and trying to disengage from using the U S dollar as safe Haven and push their own currency? Op? Max Kiernfelt/ Merics: (21:34) Um, yes and no. Uh, this has been going on for a long time, and there's nothing new for th for Chinese officials to say that, uh, they want to replace the dollar or that they need to reduce the reliance on the dollar. So this is just the latest step in a, in a long process or where this has been talked about. But I mean, if you look at the actual results instead, it's pretty clear that the [inaudible] has not been growing in popularity around the globe, particularly much the last say 10 years. Um, it's, it's stable around two to 2.5% of, uh, Swift messages go are cleared in renminbi. Um, the reason for this is largely that China prefers it that way. Um, a great amount of, uh, renminbi usage would probably lead to appreciation of their currency. So Dana Lewis - Host: (22:23) Just to talk about it for a second though, why does Russian president Vladimir Putin, why do other countries, including China keep talking about not being reliant on the U S dollar because that promotes sort of American economic domination, is that what they're trying to get away from? Max Kiernfelt/ Merics: (22:40) I think there's two parts to this. First of all, it's, it's a practical issue in the sense that the us has sanctioned countries in the past, uh, um, yeah, like around they, they can, uh, even though Swift is a Belgium company that can put a lot of pressure on Swift and banks to not do business with Chinese party parties, if they wanted to. And in the case of Iran, this, this led to them having to greatly devalue their currency to, to protect their economy, which was under enormous pressure. Um, then there is of course, a, a question of a narrative as well. These, these, uh, countries, uh, Russia and China don't want to see themselves as a part of the American system, they want to be respected equally. And of course, part of that means that anytime you have an opportunity to talk about being independent, to being strong individually, you have to take that opportunity. Dana Lewis - Host: (23:39) All right. So, so w when I took a look at some of the statistics, I mean, they jaw dropping in terms of the Chinese market on digital payment systems, like 80% of China is 900 million mobile internet users use their mobile phones for transactions, Chinese shoppers and merchants represent almost half the world's digital wallet users and Alibaba, and Tencent control, 95% of the market and cleared 50 trillion with a T in transactions in 2019. It is huge, the use of digital currency. Max Kiernfelt/ Merics: (24:17) Absolutely. Um, I think it's a little bit analogist to the way airports and subways were set up in China in the sense that if you look at a air, if you look at the infrastructure in the West, this is rather old and oftentimes built very long ago. Well, if everything in China is sort of new and fresh, and if I wanted to launch a payment system today, I wouldn't be using these old things that we use that we use in the West, but in China to have, um, they have, um, it's an emerging market. So they set up a new, fresh things. Um, this digitalization has been, um, the way it's been rolled out into the Chinese market has been very successful. I mean, everyone almost will use a, some form of online payment system, even farmers and, and surprise in the most surprising places. So you can go to the countryside in China and see people use these kinds of technologies to make payments. Dana Lewis - Host: (25:15) All right. So I've led you through this, and I've, we've kind of painted a picture that, you know, China innocently just wants to roll out a digital currency for efficiency, uh, to make them less reliant on the dollar. And probably at the end of, at the end of what we've talked about so far is, is where you take a turn in your article and the diplomat is that really, it's not about that. It's probably more about surveillance and control, is that right? Max Kiernfelt/ Merics: (25:43) Well, to some extent, yes. Uh, the fact that it, so most of the digital payment systems in China retinol are run by companies, Alibaba and Tencent. Now, if the central bank launches its own digital payment system, then that gives them control over the amount, the, the, uh, the monetary base to a large extent. And they already have, they can issue as much currency or as little currency as they want. They will have complete visibility of overall transactions that are made through their network. And they also have great ability to make users use their own preferred payment system. So it will undoubtedly result in a situation where, where the central bank has much more oversight of what's going on in the economy and can control things more in various ways. Dana Lewis - Host: (26:37) This is the ultimate big brother tool, Max Kiernfelt/ Merics: (26:42) What could be. But I think that something like this has multiple uses, obviously. So on the one hand, you can use this for things like this, but, but I think there are also a quality of life things here, uh, for the central bank sake, you can have greater control of inflation. Uh, oversight can be very good at, uh, at catching illicit transactions, transactions, and all sorts of things. So even though there is a control element, I don't want to be saying that that's the only use or the test, the main purpose of, I think that the policy makers in China are, are generally speaking, thinking rather broadly. And they are, uh, there are multiple goals with most of the policies they launch. Dana Lewis - Host: (27:26) You've obviously become a bit of a digital currency expert in, right in writing this piece and watching it. I mean, I guess because if you take a look at what's happening in digital currencies around the world, I mean, Bitcoin is punching through, you know, record levels. Um, uh, as many other digital currencies are cryptocurrencies are, but the whole design of those were to have anonymity, um, through blockchain technology. So do we need to separate the two, you know, topics when we're talking about China's digital currency and other governments, which are talking about moving towards digital currency in the original kind of cryptocurrency model, which was, you know, you could move money between people, um, and you could do it w with, with, you know, virtually anonymously. Max Kiernfelt/ Merics: (28:19) Yes. I think you need to do need to separate these two, because the technology that you use for, um, for Bitcoin is the blockchain, right? Where you are having something unchangeable as the main strength of the currency is that you have this, uh, you have this ledger that cannot be altered, or at least not easily altered. There are some blockchain experts who do say that it could potentially be hacked. Not that I know very much about that, but I think someone, someone said once that the distinction between, um, uh, an authoritarian regime will tend to gravitate towards AI solutions and a more democratic regime will tend to gravitate towards the blockchain solution. So this blockchain was, cannot be altered by the government as much. Uh, there will be a constancy of, of, um, of units, or maybe there is some sort of algorithm that produces units at some set pace. Whilst in this case, the central bank can of course issue as much currency as they want. Um, and I don't think it's very surprising that a central bank do they have control over instead of a currency that unalterable program Backstory on the digital revolution. Dana Lewis - Host: (29:43) It was supposed to take about 10 years, but it's been compressed and supercharged in the last year, mostly because of the pandemic. And it will change the way we do business, the way our governments operate remarkable. And it's happening now. I'm Dana Lewis. Thanks for listening. Please subscribe the backstory and I'll talk to you again soon.

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