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Bitcoin Stops The Bleeding: A Sound Money System Is The Only Cure For What Ails Our Economy

As fiat currencies slowly bleed out in value, they are disincentivizing saving. Bitcoin is a cure for the economic calamities.

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As fiat currencies slowly bleed out in value, they are disincentivizing saving. Bitcoin is a cure for the economic calamities.

This is an opinion editorial by Conor Chepenik, a Bitcoin pleb.

When a doctor operates on a wounded patient, the first thing they do is make sure they can stop the bleeding. No point operating if you can’t get the bleeding under control because the patient will die. Money facilitates mutual exchange and helps market actors coordinate price discovery — it is the literal blood of the economy. As fiat currencies slowly bleed out in value, they incentivize fewer people to save. If you want to stop the bleeding in your financial life, you are going to need to find a way to store your wealth in something else. There are plenty of options, but only one that is programmed to stop all bleeding in 2140.

As peoples’ money bleeds out, so too does their education, time and, I’d even argue, their mental sanity. Blood isn’t oozing out egregiously, but rather being siphoned off from tiny cuts, so most people do not even realize it’s happening. This is a hard pill to swallow. Most Western societies teach people not to question authority: raise your hand if you want to ask questions, and trust the experts. Breaking out of this mentality is difficult. Watch this clip of the White House press secretary to get an idea of how those at the top will treat people who dare question the narrative.

Pain Is The Best Teacher

Narrative is everything when trying to coerce the masses to accept a “Great Reset” (if you have no idea what the Great Reset is, you can read about it here). The scope of this article won’t cover what the Davos elite is attempting to impose on the rest of the world, but rather why Bitcoin stops money from bleeding out. Trying to calculate all of the variables that bring about the emergent, complex behavior of society is futile. Governments stole trillions of dollars via quantitative easing and blamed their theft on COVID-19.

It should not be a surprise that what followed has been chaos in the form of protests and supply chain issues. The Federal Reserve is following up its quantitative easing with tightening monetary policy at record paces trying to get inflation under control. This demand destruction is wreaking havoc all over the economy but is necessary to weed out unprofitable businesses.

For better or worse, pain is the best teacher. Hard Money recently reported that Trezor has seen a 300% increase in sales revenue after the FTX debacle. The whole point of Bitcoin is to not trust ,but verify for yourself. Many ignored this because FTX had the stamp of approval from many mainstream news outlets, politicians and celebrities.

In the wake of its blow, FTX created tons of new Bitcoin maximalists who now understand why not verifying Bitcoin with your own node means that you are trusting potentially-corrupt third parties. The mainstream media is not doing itself any favors with puff pieces like the one below. Articles like this only serve to increase the pain of those who were robbed and convince more people that the mainstream narrative is corrupt:

Source

But Self Education Helps Too

The remedy to most of these problems is a better education. Tools like Saylor.org, Udemy and plenty of others have lowered the barrier tremendously. It just requires a desire to learn.

For me, I found that desire by going down the Bitcoin rabbit hole. Ironically, answering one question would lead me to more questions and that number of questions grew exponentially. It made me wonder how much people are not taught intentionally during their traditional schooling. There is only so much time in the day and teachers must prioritize their curriculums accordingly. I just don’t understand why taxes, how to vote and basic financial literacy aren’t at the top of most public school curriculums. The reader can come to their own conclusions. What’s important is finding a teacher who speaks your language and a subject that brings out your natural curiosity. Learning becomes one of the most euphoric feelings in the world when those two needs are met.

The standard way of learning has horrible mental models for teaching people, like memorizing things for a test. Oscar Wilde is quoted as saying, “Experience is merely the name men gave to their mistakes.” People are so focused on learning from the experts that they forget that those who changed the world didn’t ask for permission to do so. They just did it. People want a hero to fix all of their problems but the truth is that no one is coming to save you. I’m not saying one should not find great mentors; it’s super valuable being able to listen to those who have become experts in their fields in order to learn. I’m saying one should not worship people like gods who can’t make mistakes. Just look at Sam Bankman-Friend, who many thought was a hero.

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Despite all of the educational content out there, the reality is most people will come to understand the difference between paper bitcoin and bitcoin you actually hold the keys for via an expensive lesson. When the majority of Bitcoiners self custody their coins, and stop blindly trusting their heroes, that is when we will see fireworks in regards to bitcoin’s price action. Every person is different and has various forms of risk tolerance. For those who are discouraged by recent events, remember: Rome was not built in a day. Sometimes the only way to get a lesson through someone’s head is for them to suffer the pain of said mistake.

FTX And Central Planners Are Not So Different

What’s interesting about watching FTX fail so rapidly is that the same thing would happen with our traditional financial system if we didn’t have central banks acting as lenders of last resort. FTX violated its own terms of service by using customer funds to make bets, but 99.9% of the world just turns a blind eye when banks do this because their terms of service legally allow fractional reserve banking.

In his book “Human Action,” Ludwig von Mises writes:

“The rich, the owners of the already operating plants, have no particular class interest in the maintenance of free competition. They are opposed to confiscation and expropriation of their fortunes, but their vested interests are rather in favor of measures preventing newcomers from challenging their position. Those fighting for free enterprise and free competition do not defend the interests of those rich today. They want a free hand left to unknown men who will be the entrepreneurs of tomorrow and whose ingenuity will make the life of coming generations more agreeable. They want the way left open to further economic improvements. They are the spokesmen of progress.”

Technology getting better should lead to massive deflation from productivity gains. Regulatory moats and monopolies prevent this. Fractional reserve banking creates an inflationary environment where tons of capital is misallocated. In a free market, most commercial banks would be insolvent.

FTX tried to create its own fractional reserve monopoly by lobbying Congress and creating a regulatory moat around its business which would’ve made it impossible for competitors to compete in the crypto ecosystem. The world is fortunate FTX’s system blew up before it was able to get its way with D.C.

Mises was right: It is not the incumbents who will create a more agreeable future, it is entrepreneurs and ideas competing in a free market. Bitcoin has over 10,000 competitors, and that number is growing every day. Many, if not all of these tokens, are Ponzi schemes in my opinion, but the idea that D.C could do a better job deciding this than the free market could is ridiculous.

I understand regulation is difficult when technology is changing things at such rapid rates. The little piece of glass in our pocket allows us to hail a ride, order food or listen to some of the greatest minds on the planet whenever we want. All of these things would seem magical to someone who lived before the creation of smartphones. There are going to be hiccups along the way as humanity tries to come to grips with these new tools. This is why I keep this Hal Finney quote as my Twitter header:

Source

For all of the wonders that technology can do for humanity, it can also drive a whole new level of control. Free markets lead to optimal price discovery. Too much central planning and markets start to break. Price discovery in a free market is like a hash function. It takes inputs of data and spits out an output that only goes one way.

With a normal hash, the algorithm works so that it is unfeasible to reverse-calculate the data. You can verify a hash by making sure the same output is achieved based on the input, but you can’t take the output and figure out the input. In this same vein, a free market will set the price of a good, but you can’t figure out how all of the labor, work, travel and other variables created the price of the good. The function only goes one way.

Market actors get upset when the coercion variable is notched up and price increases happen. The blame is typically pushed on to the producers rather than the central planners who are causing such issues. Sound familiar? Like say the U.S. government, which is calling out greedy fossil fuel companies for raising the price of gas while at the same time advocating for the end of fossil fuel use. If price controls are imposed, price discovery completely breaks down, resulting in shortages. Until the creation of money is no longer heavily intermingled with politics these issues will continue to play out.

Bitcoin Is More Important Now Than Ever

As central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) and digital identities are rolled out, it has never been more important to point out why Bitcoin is the remedy. Bitcoin allows the individual to go down a hero’s journey where they can keep the value of their labor in their head. CBDCs and digital IDs offer governments tools to enact monetary policy at the individual level, be at the center of every transaction and turn off people’s money as they see fit.

Bitcoin offers a better system, one that no one can cheat if they want to be in consensus with the rest of the network. Preston Pysh said it best: “Bitcoin is like the infinity stone.” It takes a great deal of faith to hold on to an asset that has had multiple 70% to 90% drawdowns before recovering to new all-time highs. Not many can hang on to their bitcoin but those who do over long periods of time are greatly rewarded.

The network effects of Bitcoin are insane. There is a Bitcoin website paying people 21,000 satoshis to post a sticker that it ships to you around their cities. Think about that. You can earn sats and increase the value of those sats by helping raise awareness. Bitcoin is full of these win-win scenarios. The tech is exciting, but the passion I see from Bitcoiners in real life is unlike anything I’ve ever seen before.

Bitcoin as a technology, a new form of money and an idea are bringing hope to humans around the world who have been disadvantaged because governments have a monopoly on violence. Bitcoin empowers the individual to fight back like never before. There will be growing pains along the way and more turmoil in the short term for those obsessed with measuring things in fiat. The way to fix that is to orient yourself around the new system.

The possibilities that will come out of this Bitcoin renaissance are endless. Grappling with what this new form of money means is difficult because the world is full of so many paradoxes. When you learn, you become smarter by ending up with more questions. Monopolies have brought about some of the most prosperous and technologically advanced times in human civilizations while also making George Orwell’s “1984” look like a very plausible path for the future. The internet is connecting people like never before and at the same time, loneliness is increasing. Number go up technology is associated with greed and is what initially attracts people to Bitcoin, yet many stay because they realize Bitcoin is the true effective altruism movement. These paradoxes are a bit mind bending but I do think there is value to be had from chewing on these ideas.

It can be easy to get bogged down with all of the bleeding going on in the fiat world. Bitcoin is the Band-Aid to fix it. It gives me a lot of confidence knowing my money is secured by open-source software and math rather than 12 individuals who decide when it is okay to steal and when it’s time to practice fiscal austerity.

I’m glad the Fed has finally decided to do the right thing for the economy but it has manipulated the cost of capital for so long that it now risks destroying the entire system if it keeps tightening. The problem is that the Fed’s only other option is to lower rates again, which causes more bleeding via inflation. Bitcoin offers humanity a way out of this paradox where central planners try to fix the bleeding by siphoning more blood out of the patient. Every time central planners manipulate the cost of capital it becomes more clear that market participants are playing a rigged game. Bitcoin is the fairest game humanity has ever created and the best chance we have of separating money and state.

This is a guest post by Conor Chepenik. Opinions expressed are entirely their own and do not necessarily reflect those of BTC Inc or Bitcoin Magazine.

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Aging at AACR Annual Meeting 2024

BUFFALO, NY- March 11, 2024 – Impact Journals publishes scholarly journals in the biomedical sciences with a focus on all areas of cancer and aging…

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BUFFALO, NY- March 11, 2024 – Impact Journals publishes scholarly journals in the biomedical sciences with a focus on all areas of cancer and aging research. Aging is one of the most prominent journals published by Impact Journals

Credit: Impact Journals

BUFFALO, NY- March 11, 2024 – Impact Journals publishes scholarly journals in the biomedical sciences with a focus on all areas of cancer and aging research. Aging is one of the most prominent journals published by Impact Journals

Impact Journals will be participating as an exhibitor at the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Annual Meeting 2024 from April 5-10 at the San Diego Convention Center in San Diego, California. This year, the AACR meeting theme is “Inspiring Science • Fueling Progress • Revolutionizing Care.”

Visit booth #4159 at the AACR Annual Meeting 2024 to connect with members of the Aging team.

About Aging-US:

Aging publishes research papers in all fields of aging research including but not limited, aging from yeast to mammals, cellular senescence, age-related diseases such as cancer and Alzheimer’s diseases and their prevention and treatment, anti-aging strategies and drug development and especially the role of signal transduction pathways such as mTOR in aging and potential approaches to modulate these signaling pathways to extend lifespan. The journal aims to promote treatment of age-related diseases by slowing down aging, validation of anti-aging drugs by treating age-related diseases, prevention of cancer by inhibiting aging. Cancer and COVID-19 are age-related diseases.

Aging is indexed and archived by PubMed/Medline (abbreviated as “Aging (Albany NY)”), PubMed CentralWeb of Science: Science Citation Index Expanded (abbreviated as “Aging‐US” and listed in the Cell Biology and Geriatrics & Gerontology categories), Scopus (abbreviated as “Aging” and listed in the Cell Biology and Aging categories), Biological Abstracts, BIOSIS Previews, EMBASE, META (Chan Zuckerberg Initiative) (2018-2022), and Dimensions (Digital Science).

Please visit our website at www.Aging-US.com​​ and connect with us:

  • Aging X
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  • Aging YouTube
  • Aging LinkedIn
  • Aging SoundCloud
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  • Aging Reddit

Click here to subscribe to Aging publication updates.

For media inquiries, please contact media@impactjournals.com.


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NY Fed Finds Medium, Long-Term Inflation Expectations Jump Amid Surge In Stock Market Optimism

NY Fed Finds Medium, Long-Term Inflation Expectations Jump Amid Surge In Stock Market Optimism

One month after the inflation outlook tracked…

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NY Fed Finds Medium, Long-Term Inflation Expectations Jump Amid Surge In Stock Market Optimism

One month after the inflation outlook tracked by the NY Fed Consumer Survey extended their late 2023 slide, with 3Y inflation expectations in January sliding to a record low 2.4% (from 2.6% in December), even as 1 and 5Y inflation forecasts remained flat, moments ago the NY Fed reported that in February there was a sharp rebound in longer-term inflation expectations, rising to 2.7% from 2.4% at the three-year ahead horizon, and jumping to 2.9% from 2.5% at the five-year ahead horizon, while the 1Y inflation outlook was flat for the 3rd month in a row, stuck at 3.0%. 

The increases in both the three-year ahead and five-year ahead measures were most pronounced for respondents with at most high school degrees (in other words, the "really smart folks" are expecting deflation soon). The survey’s measure of disagreement across respondents (the difference between the 75th and 25th percentile of inflation expectations) decreased at all horizons, while the median inflation uncertainty—or the uncertainty expressed regarding future inflation outcomes—declined at the one- and three-year ahead horizons and remained unchanged at the five-year ahead horizon.

Going down the survey, we find that the median year-ahead expected price changes increased by 0.1 percentage point to 4.3% for gas; decreased by 1.8 percentage points to 6.8% for the cost of medical care (its lowest reading since September 2020); decreased by 0.1 percentage point to 5.8% for the cost of a college education; and surprisingly decreased by 0.3 percentage point for rent to 6.1% (its lowest reading since December 2020), and remained flat for food at 4.9%.

We find the rent expectations surprising because it is happening just asking rents are rising across the country.

At the same time as consumers erroneously saw sharply lower rents, median home price growth expectations remained unchanged for the fifth consecutive month at 3.0%.

Turning to the labor market, the survey found that the average perceived likelihood of voluntary and involuntary job separations increased, while the perceived likelihood of finding a job (in the event of a job loss) declined. "The mean probability of leaving one’s job voluntarily in the next 12 months also increased, by 1.8 percentage points to 19.5%."

Mean unemployment expectations - or the mean probability that the U.S. unemployment rate will be higher one year from now - decreased by 1.1 percentage points to 36.1%, the lowest reading since February 2022. Additionally, the median one-year-ahead expected earnings growth was unchanged at 2.8%, remaining slightly below its 12-month trailing average of 2.9%.

Turning to household finance, we find the following:

  • The median expected growth in household income remained unchanged at 3.1%. The series has been moving within a narrow range of 2.9% to 3.3% since January 2023, and remains above the February 2020 pre-pandemic level of 2.7%.
  • Median household spending growth expectations increased by 0.2 percentage point to 5.2%. The increase was driven by respondents with a high school degree or less.
  • Median year-ahead expected growth in government debt increased to 9.3% from 8.9%.
  • The mean perceived probability that the average interest rate on saving accounts will be higher in 12 months increased by 0.6 percentage point to 26.1%, remaining below its 12-month trailing average of 30%.
  • Perceptions about households’ current financial situations deteriorated somewhat with fewer respondents reporting being better off than a year ago. Year-ahead expectations also deteriorated marginally with a smaller share of respondents expecting to be better off and a slightly larger share of respondents expecting to be worse off a year from now.
  • The mean perceived probability that U.S. stock prices will be higher 12 months from now increased by 1.4 percentage point to 38.9%.
  • At the same time, perceptions and expectations about credit access turned less optimistic: "Perceptions of credit access compared to a year ago deteriorated with a larger share of respondents reporting tighter conditions and a smaller share reporting looser conditions compared to a year ago."

Also, a smaller percentage of consumers, 11.45% vs 12.14% in prior month, expect to not be able to make minimum debt payment over the next three months

Last, and perhaps most humorous, is the now traditional cognitive dissonance one observes with these polls, because at a time when long-term inflation expectations jumped, which clearly suggests that financial conditions will need to be tightened, the number of respondents expecting higher stock prices one year from today jumped to the highest since November 2021... which incidentally is just when the market topped out during the last cycle before suffering a painful bear market.

Tyler Durden Mon, 03/11/2024 - 12:40

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Homes listed for sale in early June sell for $7,700 more

New Zillow research suggests the spring home shopping season may see a second wave this summer if mortgage rates fall
The post Homes listed for sale in…

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  • A Zillow analysis of 2023 home sales finds homes listed in the first two weeks of June sold for 2.3% more. 
  • The best time to list a home for sale is a month later than it was in 2019, likely driven by mortgage rates.
  • The best time to list can be as early as the second half of February in San Francisco, and as late as the first half of July in New York and Philadelphia. 

Spring home sellers looking to maximize their sale price may want to wait it out and list their home for sale in the first half of June. A new Zillow® analysis of 2023 sales found that homes listed in the first two weeks of June sold for 2.3% more, a $7,700 boost on a typical U.S. home.  

The best time to list consistently had been early May in the years leading up to the pandemic. The shift to June suggests mortgage rates are strongly influencing demand on top of the usual seasonality that brings buyers to the market in the spring. This home-shopping season is poised to follow a similar pattern as that in 2023, with the potential for a second wave if the Federal Reserve lowers interest rates midyear or later. 

The 2.3% sale price premium registered last June followed the first spring in more than 15 years with mortgage rates over 6% on a 30-year fixed-rate loan. The high rates put home buyers on the back foot, and as rates continued upward through May, they were still reassessing and less likely to bid boldly. In June, however, rates pulled back a little from 6.79% to 6.67%, which likely presented an opportunity for determined buyers heading into summer. More buyers understood their market position and could afford to transact, boosting competition and sale prices.

The old logic was that sellers could earn a premium by listing in late spring, when search activity hit its peak. Now, with persistently low inventory, mortgage rate fluctuations make their own seasonality. First-time home buyers who are on the edge of qualifying for a home loan may dip in and out of the market, depending on what’s happening with rates. It is almost certain the Federal Reserve will push back any interest-rate cuts to mid-2024 at the earliest. If mortgage rates follow, that could bring another surge of buyers later this year.

Mortgage rates have been impacting affordability and sale prices since they began rising rapidly two years ago. In 2022, sellers nationwide saw the highest sale premium when they listed their home in late March, right before rates barreled past 5% and continued climbing. 

Zillow’s research finds the best time to list can vary widely by metropolitan area. In 2023, it was as early as the second half of February in San Francisco, and as late as the first half of July in New York. Thirty of the top 35 largest metro areas saw for-sale listings command the highest sale prices between May and early July last year. 

Zillow also found a wide range in the sale price premiums associated with homes listed during those peak periods. At the hottest time of the year in San Jose, homes sold for 5.5% more, a $88,000 boost on a typical home. Meanwhile, homes in San Antonio sold for 1.9% more during that same time period.  

 

Metropolitan Area Best Time to List Price Premium Dollar Boost
United States First half of June 2.3% $7,700
New York, NY First half of July 2.4% $15,500
Los Angeles, CA First half of May 4.1% $39,300
Chicago, IL First half of June 2.8% $8,800
Dallas, TX First half of June 2.5% $9,200
Houston, TX Second half of April 2.0% $6,200
Washington, DC Second half of June 2.2% $12,700
Philadelphia, PA First half of July 2.4% $8,200
Miami, FL First half of June 2.3% $12,900
Atlanta, GA Second half of June 2.3% $8,700
Boston, MA Second half of May 3.5% $23,600
Phoenix, AZ First half of June 3.2% $14,700
San Francisco, CA Second half of February 4.2% $50,300
Riverside, CA First half of May 2.7% $15,600
Detroit, MI First half of July 3.3% $7,900
Seattle, WA First half of June 4.3% $31,500
Minneapolis, MN Second half of May 3.7% $13,400
San Diego, CA Second half of April 3.1% $29,600
Tampa, FL Second half of June 2.1% $8,000
Denver, CO Second half of May 2.9% $16,900
Baltimore, MD First half of July 2.2% $8,200
St. Louis, MO First half of June 2.9% $7,000
Orlando, FL First half of June 2.2% $8,700
Charlotte, NC Second half of May 3.0% $11,000
San Antonio, TX First half of June 1.9% $5,400
Portland, OR Second half of April 2.6% $14,300
Sacramento, CA First half of June 3.2% $17,900
Pittsburgh, PA Second half of June 2.3% $4,700
Cincinnati, OH Second half of April 2.7% $7,500
Austin, TX Second half of May 2.8% $12,600
Las Vegas, NV First half of June 3.4% $14,600
Kansas City, MO Second half of May 2.5% $7,300
Columbus, OH Second half of June 3.3% $10,400
Indianapolis, IN First half of July 3.0% $8,100
Cleveland, OH First half of July  3.4% $7,400
San Jose, CA First half of June 5.5% $88,400

 

The post Homes listed for sale in early June sell for $7,700 more appeared first on Zillow Research.

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