The major benefit of the US Dollar is that you can do things with it. Between export controls, currency controls, laws on foreign ownership, etc, china can pay me all the RMB in the world. I still can’t do a whole lot with it.
This is part of the same reason many people don't use Bitcoin- you can't actually do much with it because retailers don't accept it. But China is definitely thinking about how to fix that problem, and soon they will make it possible to pay directly in CNY in other countries. Once you can buy things with it, the CNY is attractive from a practical perspective. A lot of your stuff is already manufactured in China, once/if using CNY makes your purchase easier then it's going to gain ground on the USD.
Retailers don't accept crypto not because of the technology so much as the fact it is a capital gains event every time you transfer crypto, which means both the buyer and seller are now forced to keep a log of their gains/losses against the dollar everytime they buy a pack of gum.
Obviously that's extremely impractical and at best you're hiring a 3rd party to streamline that for you. It's a clusterfuck at tax time (edit: stable coin doesn't help here -- you must still report gains on stable coins as it is still a $0 capital gain which is different than no capital gain).
Retailers already dealing with capital gains and with high chargeback rates love it though. For instance, it's usually the cheapest same-day clearing way to buy precious metals online since credit card rates are high (chargeback), ACH takes days, and wires tend to cost $15+ with many banks.
Reticence among retailers predates the capital gains policy of the IRS. The volatility of Bitcoin's value induces excessive exchange risk. However, we don't see capital gains nor exchange risk with stablecoins. I assume that network effects are insufficient to drive retail demand for stablecoin support.
> Reticence among retailers predates the capital gains policy of the IRS. The volatility of Bitcoin's value induces excessive
The IRS policy is irrelevant, the law always required payment of capital gains. It's consistently been the hardest thing about accepting Bitcoin for payment.
The volatility of bitcoin is why there is capital gains on every trade, it has nothing to do with the IRS's new crypto policy.
If a bitcoin rises or falls by a calculable amount between when you received it vs when you spent a portion of it, you have gains/losses. That has always been required by the IRS to be reported, whether that is a BTC or chicken feathers.
You do not need to report a $0 capital gain when using stablecoins. Sure crypto can seem like the wild West with CPAs having different opinions on what little official guidance is out there but that one is simply absurd.
Funnily enough you can use Bitcoin at most merchants that use a Square PoS device, which is like 25% of merchants in the US. It just takes time for folks to change their behaviors. And why would they, if they're getting X% cashback on all purchases using their credit cards?
We've witness deflationary forces in computer hw for decades and no one is holding off their purchases. Time is scarce and it ultimately forces consumption because otherwise, what would you be saving for?
Don't need Econ 101 to understand this basic reality.
Well there is a difference between people not buying anything at all and being significantly less than they are now. Consumer goods and services is only the tip of the iceberg.
How much do you think debt would cost and how easy would it be for businesses to get credit?
Combining a deflationary currency with a growing (or at least non static) economy is bad a everyone who has a basic understanding of history prior to the 1930s can see that. Something like bitcoin would be even much worse than the gold standard.
You're forcing business to produce something valuable in real terms instead of nominal terms and you're making that calculation easier to do for economic actors because the measuring stick is now controlled by an algorithm as opposed to charlatans.
Having less of that garbage fiat short-termism is a good thing for society.
Yet having more of endless boom and bust cycles with major economic depressions lasting for years (outcomes of the gold standard was a good idea).
> You're forcing business to produce something valuable in real terms instead of nominal terms
I don't quite understand what does that mean. Pricing goods in oil or grain? (coincidentally either of which would function better as a currency than bitcoin).
Computer hardware isn't trying to be currency. Bitcoin was supposed to be, but hardly anyone who uses Bitcoin these days is using it to buy things--it's used as a store of value or a speculative asset, not a means of transaction.
Paying Chinese companies in RMB isn’t the issue. If I sell something and a Chinese company pays me in RMB, I can’t really do anything with a billion yuan. Can’t buy a company (limitations on foreign ownership), can’t buy property (99-year lease that can be canceled on the whims of the government at any time), can’t buy Chinese debt (terrible yields, very small foreign market access, incredibly opaque laws and accounting), and nobody else in the world wants it so I have no choice but to sell it back to China in exchange for a real currency at whatever horseshit exchange rate they’ve concocted.
It’s worthless money and I don’t see anything out of china that would cause that to change.
Because if I am running a business I just want to be paid in money that I can pay my bills in. I don't want to have the additional task of managing rare earths and electronics inventory. That's not "a bit more work." It's running an entirely different business that I don't know how to run.
I think OP's point is that a "99 year lease" isn't worth very much without a firm guarantee that the least in fact lasts that long. I don't really have an opinion on land leases in the PRC, but it doesn't seem facially unreasonable to suspect that a foreign lease holder's land value wouldn't be a priority for China's leadership during an economic crisis.
This is on full display with the US's Venezuela problem: no one believes the US will hold it, so oil companies don't want to invest because last time exactly this happened - they had everything seized.
Imagine if you'd invested in lithium mining in Afghanistan 15 years ago: you'd likely have paid a lot, made little money, lost employees and then lost it to the Taliban.
I guess this is naive, but can't you use it to buy (or sell it to people who want to buy) Chinese products? It's not like China doesn't have an enormous amount and range of products on offer.
This is actually an interesting point. Wouldn't it be bad for China if the US isn't the reserve currency/the RMB gains a lot more in value relative to the USD? It would proportionally, negatively, affect their export profits, no?
Germany did relatively fine though? Despite the German mark being the second largest reserve currency and their economy being heavily reliant on exports.
Mostly it’s just what I’ve read, I don’t know if it’s true, which is why I asked. If you get less yuan-people-hours per dollar (and materials cost increase for the same reason), you would get less per dollar than previously, I think?
Eventually you hit an inflection point where it’s cheaper to manufacture elsewhere. Which is why China is working Africa, huh?
I mean, you can buy goods and services within china, and you can sell those goods and services. The “horseshit” exchange rate can’t deviate too far from the real value or it incentivises laundering too much. The exchange rate isn’t _that_ bad as a result.
It's more of a payment processor issue than a device issue.
If you are in a country or area with a large Chinese population, you can usually pay easily in RMB with Alipay.
If you use Visa and Mastercard, you are subject to US regulations, sanctions, and embargoes. Many alternative payment processor exist, PIX in Brazil, UPI in India, etc.
There are several systems in the EU: Wero, Bizum, BLIK
It is urgent that Europeans coordinate to ensure the interoperability of these systems and reduce the influence of Visa and Mastercard.
In the event of conflict, this will be the first service to be cut in order to disrupt European countries.
An integrated European payments system should be very high up on the priorities list of the European Commision. I believe every EU country already has its own version of a QR code payment, I don't know why can't they connect "easily" connect them.
It's complicated, there are two types of applications and networks.
1) Direct payment systems via mobile phone, generally designed initially for payments between friends and family. They have been set up in several countries by neobanks, generally based on the Mastercard network (very common among neobanks). A Latvian neobank may expand into the Baltic countries, but is unlikely to succeed in Portugal. These systems are not interoperable with each other.
2) Systems promoted by banking networks, such as Bizum in Spain, which has expanded to the Iberian Peninsula, and Wero, which is supported by BNP Paribas (France, Belgium, Germany). These networks are independent of Mastercard, Visa, etc., but they seek to favor their members and do not seek to become widespread.
Discussions have been ongoing for years to achieve interoperability. The idea for the moment was to let the market structure itself naturally without too much intervention, other than to say “we must move towards interoperability at the European level.” This approach has worked very well for bank transfers, which have become simple, fast, and relatively secure, but it has taken a long time (Europe, consensus, etc.).
You can buy with RMB in a lot of countries outside the West, if they have integrated UnionPay or AliPay into their payment processors.
But more importantly, you can buy a lot of stuff from the factory of the world. Which is why a lot of countries don't mind holding the RMB. Just not enough for it to become a reserve currency, and certainly no one wants it to become the petroyuan.
Would that it were so easy to blame the flyover states. Almost half the people who cast votes voted for this - and at the same time voted for the status quo legislators who opt not to keep him in check.
The blame extends equally to everybody who supported this but due to the way American elections are set up, those people on the margins are “how” this happened.
...among the people who voted. There are a lot of folks who opted out that bear responsibility for the way this country and its power is being dismantled.
He wouldn't win the popular vote today! Why is it that when you call yourself a Republican, you take a very narrow margin of victory and consider it a mandate to only listen to your fanbase? I bet it feels fun at first, and there are a few people who get very wealthy and powerful as a result, but reality always comes crashing back down.
I suppose that if the talk of suspending mid-term elections bears fruit, that changes the equation.
You can still call your congressman, senator, local political, councilman, or someone else, spend 30 mins watching a demonstration, donate $10 to Amnesty, tell a random dude in fatigues "grateful for your service but please don't invade Greenland". The more people that do these kind of things the harder it gets for the Fascists to brand those that do as left-wing terrorists.
I’ve been tear gassed. I’m out here trying. I just know it’s gonna get a lot worse before it gets better. The regime is losing its grip and the only way out that fascists know is to escalate the violence.
Invading Greenland is a symptom of us on the ground fighting back. It’s to prove to Americans that we’re now isolated.
There have been multiple instances of exactly what NRA members decry as federal tyranny: Waco, Ruby Ridge, etc. At not a single one did any number of people exercising their second amendment right ever show up to actually do anything, even to peacefully protest.
The idea that the 2nd amendment exists to keep alive a threat of rebellion against a tyrannical gov't is a joke.
The truth is that on average Republicans have way more guns that Democrats.
Anecdata but… I’ve personally known many Republicans who have massive gun collections and even personal shooting ranges in their basement. I’ve never met a Democrat with any of that.
Only one side of this conflict is meaningfully armed and they are already in power.
Well 40% of the population or so approves of the administration, so it's more like "to save themselves from their government and 40% of the rest of the population". That means resorting to the 2A is, at the very best, a rather weak bet.
“Second Amendment solutions” are only OK to talk about if you’re a Republican (I.e. “Real American”).
I’m being sarcastic, for the record. Back during his first term, Trump talked about “second amendment people” doing something about liberal Supreme Court justices (iirc) and the right wing media treated everyone as crazy for thinking that was wildly inappropriate.
It's really interesting how the same propaganda is applied by fascist governments everywhere. The ones supporting the "nationalist" government are the patriots and the others are enemies
The average Waco wacko can’t possible to fight even a small contingent from the local national guard, let alone a military with trillions of dollars of meteriel
All the assault weapons you can store in your shed are useless when an f35 takes them out from 300 miles away.
Yes, that is exactly how the US "lost" in Vietnam: Not having air power take them out from 300 miles away. I put "lost" in scare quotes because that "loss" is debatable, but that's a debate for another time.
The broader context was that the Indochina War was partially concurrent with, and the bulk of the combat only a little more than a decade after, Chinese intervention in the Korean War. The White House was simply terrified of the Chinese and put all sorts of restrictions on US forces that effectively guaranteed the US could never win an outright military victory.
Hanoi was declared off-limits to US bombers while Soviet and Chinese materiel flooded into the DRV, foreign pilots (including Soviets and North Koreans) were allowed to operate with impunity, airbases just over the Chinese border were used as safe havens for combat missions yet were off-limits to US pilots, over 180k Chinese troops rotated through Vietnam operating AAA batteries and such, etc. etc.
So yes, US unwillingness (arguably, inability) to apply air power where it could actually achieve strategic effects played a very large role in ensuring the US could never win an outright military victory in Vietnam. It's an open question whether the proper application of air power could have enabled such an outright military victory.
Certainly the US could and would apply air power to any serious domestic insurrection. There would be no targeting restrictions for fear of foreign escalation. There would be no influx of foreign aid and materiel. There would be no foreign pilots flying training and combat missions and no foreign troops manning foreign SAMs. There would be no foreign safe havens for rebels.
The conditions that IMO prevented an outright US military victory in Vietnam simply do not exist in a domestic context. Barring the coordinated defection of a significant portion of the US military, any armed insurrection in the US would be quickly crushed.
An "armed insurrection" is not required to deter a state's monopoly on violence - even the mere decentralization of arms across the populace objectively accomplishes this impressive feat.
The republicans want this. McConnell did everything in his power to make damn sure Donald Trump never saw justice.
This is the leadership. Congress abdicated their jobs and de facto doesn’t exist, the Supreme Court now solely exists to make sure that Trump is not constrained by law, and the executive branch is doing exactly what they said they were going to do during election season.
We’re not getting out of this unscathed. It’s too late. November 6, 2024 we were too late.
This is the only statement that matters. We knew exactly who Trump is and exactly what he would do if voted in again. The "opposition" did nothing during Trump's first term, and now they are completely powerless do do anything.
America voted for this, we failed miserably to prevent this from happening for the past 30 years, and we will pay the price for this for generations.
I think it's going to have to get very very much worse before it gets better. Too many people have no idea what's happening, and too many of the people who do know what's happening (including quite a few in Democratic leadership) seem to think it'll all just snap back into place in 2026 and 2028. I'm afraid they won't wake up to it until we see a 1930's style depression in which Americans are literally going hungry. Really does feel like we're doing the 20th century all over again.
It’s a bunch of dudes who think they’re literally Rambo. Like, sure with enough firepower you can maybe take out two before they take you out but any sort of application of your second amendment rights is going to end quickly for you.
The irony of the romanticizing of the "Lone Wolf" is that, in reality, the lone wolf dies alone.
Coordinating with your neighbors and compatriots is essential from the soap box, to the ballot box, to the jury box, and to the cartridge box. And I'd like to emphasize the order of those boxes should be followed.
Last time I noted the four boxes, it was to point out the first three are all being simultaneously threatened by Trump, in a way that I (albeit as an outsider to US politics!) consider "credible".
Like pjc50, I'm British by birth, though I no longer live there. Like most Brits, the USA's 2nd Amendment isn't something we look up to, it's something we consider deeply weird. Even UK police are not routinely armed, and I've seen polls saying they don't want that to change.
And also like several commenters here, I don't think it's going to make much of a difference. Trump was actually fired at, albeit by an idiot, he still supports the 2nd Amendment. Either the armed forces step in on the side of the constitution, or they step in on the side of the administration, but either way the 2nd Amendment isn't going to make a difference: the guerrilla teams use AR-15s, the military can afford to respond with drone strikes.
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