throwaway20875
Joined 5 years ago
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254
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71
Member since
Feb 8
Recent submissions
Comment · 4 years ago
We're well beyond your cognitive capabilities in this discussion if you're suggesting that a comparison between powerful ex-directors of the US intelligence apparatus landing post-gig jobs as political commentators at media organizations and "Marines" at McDonalds is apt (or even relevant).
Comment · 4 years ago
There is no defense of BTC inherent to my point, quite the contrary. BTC is largely irrelevant. What's relevant is that this leader in a South American country has thumbed his nose at the empire and the empire will seek to undermine him through all means at its disposal, media hit pieces included.
Comment · 4 years ago
There are clear conflicts of interests between an independent press and the press being owned by large corporate entities.
Aside from that, note the revolving door and cozy relationship between the intelligence arm of the government and media:
William Brennan - CIA to MSNBC
James Clapper - NSA to CNN
Michael Hayden - NSA to CNN
Asha Rangappa - FBI to CNN
Chuck Rosenberg - DEA to MSNBC
The above are just a few, and clearly a new flavor of the military/intelligence industrial complex.
Then consider that the Washington Post is owned by an individual that has also competed for billions of CIA and NSO business (going back many years before 2020): https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/cia-awards-multib...
Or consider the overt yellow journalism that was used to justify invasion of Iraq in 2003 - the New York Times was one of the most culpable outlets: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_coverage_of_the_Iraq_War...
Comment · 4 years ago
>I doubt any theories of “the media” having anything to gain from conspiring against the country
Aside from your sweeping and snide remarks on Americans, this is a woefully naive take. The US derives a lot of its power through the global monetary system. It can essentially isolate an entire country from large segments of global trade by simply sanctioning it (severing SWIFT transactions and threatening any banks with loss of settlement/SWIFT access/penalties for dealing with the country). Most of global trade is settled in dollars and a lot of reserves are held in dollars. The US exports dollars. The US takes advantage of those circumstances for its own benefit and seeks to preserve this system. BTC doesn't really pose a threat (not enough of it, slow throughput, too volatile).
Further, the US has a long history of interfering in South America (United Fruit, for example). Or: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_r...
Bottom line: There is clear incentives for the US to have its way in El Salvador and elsewhere. There is also a clear track record of the US doing anything it can, legal or illegal, to achieve its desired outcomes in South America. Leveraging a largely US based mega-corporate-owned media to assist in those endeavors is only natural (and blithely dismissed by midwits like yourself). The president of El Salvador has disrespected the empire, so El Salvador delenda est.
Comment · 4 years ago
Bitcoin isn't the lone currency in the country and the dollar is still widely used there. Expect more of this as the president of El Salvador has invited the ire of the US government by exposing the US's involvement in corruption in his country: https://twitter.com/nayibbukele/status/1469045510442864642
The media is about to go full court press on this guy, BTC is just one angle they'll use.
Comment · 5 years ago
No greater example of the decline of our society: the contrast between HN's focus and attention to this product announcement and the NSA leaks.
Comment · 5 years ago
Not included in article: photos relevant to the actual mysteries.
Comment · 5 years ago
It's a political move and power grab.
Comment · 5 years ago
This whole circus is about as contrived as it gets, complete with the "think of the children" gimmick. The timing, the theatrics, the manufactured celebrity of a middle manager at Facebook who is doing the "right" kind of whistleblowing that the establishment likes.
Facebook's predatory business model isn't unique or new. This is about raw power to censor.
Comment · 5 years ago
This reads like a hit piece.
Comment · 5 years ago
>Even with the recent rise in prices, energy prices are still way to low to actually influence choices most people make.
No revolution was ever made with silk gloves kind of mentality right here.
Comment · 5 years ago
Good.
Comment · 5 years ago
>All this speculation and capital going a little crazy searching for yield are side effects of an overabundance of capital.
The stock market is where savers have been forced to. Pensions included. ZIRP/negative real rates have consequences. There "isn't too much capital". It's being misallocated due to misguided policy. It will get worse.
You need to start thinking in second and third order effects.
Comment · 5 years ago
>The causality is reversed for public debt though - governments react to deflationary environments by increasing public spending to compensate for the private sector's propensity to save - as a "spender of last resort" as it were.
Again, we're at levels record levels of global public debt. There is no free lunch. Debt financed spending is only possible through financial repression (real default through inflation in this case and in the 1940's following WWII, the last time US debt reached 130% of GDP) which ultimately drives speculation as capital searches for yield. Rinse repeat deflationary shock as a result.
Comment · 5 years ago
Though there are similarities, the US and Japan have very different circumstances. The US runs twin deficits, has extreme inequality compared to its peers, and extremely high costs for healthcare and education. This is not a recipe for stability.