ThRoWnDaSmOke

[ThRoWnDaSmOke @CarterJG]

@DimitriDAGreat @Jonathanedillon @HistorianUSA1 The most popular firm can get you up to $2Mill if you’re under 46 and up to $1Mill if you’re under 56 without any exam nor labs. Arrest history and prescription history are still evaluated in those cases along with medical records.

[ThRoWnDaSmOke @CarterJG]

@joh5452 @BTC_for_Freedom A fairytale.

[The Drunk Republican @DrunkRepub]

The fact that we are having a hard time throwing America a 250th birthday party because leftists are threatening to kill everyone involved is the most zeitgeist shit I’ve ever seen in my life

[Thrilla the Gorilla @ThrillaRilla369]

The middle class is the most expensive place to live, and no one talks about it. Lower income households get assistance. The wealthy use tax strategies and loopholes. But the middle class pays full taxes, full tuition, full healthcare, full everything. So you work 50 hours a week just to stay in the same place and fund everyone’s life except yours.

[ThRoWnDaSmOke @CarterJG]

🤔

[🇺🇸 Justice @250_Revolution]

How is it Joe Biden brought in 87,000 IRS agent and not one of them ever found the Somalia fraud in Minnesota?

Anyone?

[Not that Elon. @Eggplant_Elon]

Why do I store my wealth in Bitcoin?

Because if you take any fiat number you can conceive, a million, ten million, a billion, a trillion in your account, it is closer to zero than to what bitcoin’s eventual purchasing power could be, because one side is bounded by debasement and the other is bounded by mathematics.

People like to argue over price predictions and timelines.

What nobody can argue with is the structural asymmetry, because nobody has ever produced a fiat currency with a floor, and nobody is going to produce more than 21 million Bitcoin.

Once you accept those two facts, the conclusion is obvious.

That’s the part that breaks fiat brains because they’ve been trained to think of money as a number, rather than as a claim on future production held in something the issuer cannot dilute.

The number in their account feels large because the units are small, so the asymmetry only becomes obvious when you stop measuring in the thing that’s being debased.

You might want to get some in case it catches on.

[ThRoWnDaSmOke @CarterJG]

If peace of mind is the prize, the goal would be to accumulate enough that a lifetime income annuity can cover your expenses for life no matter how long you live, with enough remaining to stay invested to keep up with inflation on your discretionary spending. Paychecks and Playchecks. For many, there’s no such thing as peace of mind in fiat so that proven plan is being neglected. If you believe in fiat (and wish to remain asleep) the paycheck and paycheck strategy is for you. I pray you wake up though.

[Lara Logan @laralogan]

Hmmmmm

[Matt Whitlock @MattWhitlock]

A US hospital has taken a billion dollars from taxpayers to help poor patients.

But INSTEAD of helping poor patients, they paid executives millions, built an art museum, built an NBA practice facility, and a buiding in Abu Dhabi.

Meet Cleveland Clinic.

[Ron Sovereignty Swanson⚡️🗝️ @RonSwanonson]

We essentially have to print money in order to pay the interest on the money that we’ve already printed

And people tell me that a decentralized, finite, neutral monetary system that does a full audit of itself every 10 minutes, is a scam 😂

[Ron Sovereignty Swanson⚡️🗝️ @RonSwanonson]

You used to be able to get 5 Bitcoin for solving a captcha

Then 10,000 BTC bought a pizza

Then a Bitcoin cost about $1 each, just like an item on the dollar menu at McDonalds

Then they were about as much as a lunch

Then as much as a night out

Then they cost about a car payment

Then they cost about a month’s mortgage

Then they were worth as much as a house down payment would be

Now they cost a decent annual salary in the US
————

Do we see a trend here? Might be a good idea to get some in case it catches on

[ThRoWnDaSmOke @CarterJG]

@Bitcoin_Teddy Which $65k car? There’s probably a much cooler version for $20k that’ll cost $200-$500 to put CarPlay in and be worth $60k in 5 years.

[ThRoWnDaSmOke @CarterJG]

@grok @TheMoonCarl That’s a big jump from $250k to $250k.

[Aaron Dunbar @DUNBAR74]

I want a truck with no GPS or tracking.

I want a house that doesn't spy on me.

I want a government that builds roads and maintains the military and stays out of my business.

I want the constitution of the United States respected and upheld.

I want the government to be the last thing I ever think about, just like the founders intended.

[Z @insatiablevine]

It's crystal clear that the only purpose Congress serves is to fuck over legally born American citizens.

That's their sole purpose for existing.

[ThRoWnDaSmOke @CarterJG]

@BitcoinRachy Are they polite? Are they grateful? Do they say thank you? Anything non-appreciative must be sold for Bitcoin!

[Lawrence Lepard, "fix the money, fix the world" @LawrenceLepard]

Big Print Update

In written answers to the Senate Warsh re-emphasized that he does not think inflation statistics are accurate and in his testimony he suggested using the "trimmed mean" which throws out outlier prices and is currently printing much lower than headline numbers. Wake up folks. Bessent is calling the shots and Warsh is going to cut short rates. They have to to reduce government interest expenses. Given that this administration doesn't move slowly, I could see an unscheduled Fed meeting right after May 15 and a 100 bps rate cut. Last chance to get on the sound money train at relatively attractive prices: gold, silver, bitcoin.

Is this the Big Print? Yes and no. M2 the monetary base grows when the banks make loans and print money into existence. The Fed creates money out of thin air in the form of reserves which it gives to the banks in exchange for Treasury Bonds. Literally with a mouse click. The bank reserves do not hit M2 but they allow the banks to increase their lending which does hit M2. It generally does this in a crisis (2008, COVID). Warsh has said that (absent a market disruption) he wants to shrink the balance sheet (i don't believe he can) but that lower interest rates fuel growth. He believes in AI productivity gains he and Bessent emphasize growth. Therefore, he will cut. Another credit/inflation cycle will begin. All other things being equal: inflationary. The big unknown? The Bond Market. If the bond market realizes that real yields are hugely negative it will sell off hard and drive the Fed into crisis mode and YCC. Given that the middle east problem appears to be dragging on my operating assumption is lower rates, credit growth, more inflation, stock and bond trouble and then the CRISIS which creates the Big Print on the Fed's balance sheet. If they were to lock long bonds at 2.5% which they did to finance WWII the bond market will look at the Fed and say "sold to you". The Fed Balance sheet is ~$6.6T. US Federal debt is $39T. So, Big Print 1: GFC $3.6T, Big Print 2: COVID $5.0T. Big Print 3: ???

None of us own enough sound money assets.

[Brivael Le Pogam @brivael]

Elon Musk avait dit un truc qui m'avait marqué sur l'allocation de ressources. En substance : passé un certain niveau de richesse, l'argent n'est plus de la consommation, c'est de l'allocation de capital.

Cette phrase change tout.

L'économie, dans le fond, c'est juste un problème d'allocation. Tu as des ressources finies et des usages infinis. Qui décide où va quoi ?

Imagine une cour de récré. 100 enfants, des paquets de cartes Pokémon distribués au hasard. Tu laisses faire. Très vite, un ordre émerge. Les bons joueurs accumulent les cartes rares, les collectionneurs trient, les négociateurs trouvent des deals. Personne n'a planifié. Et pourtant chaque carte finit dans les mains de celui qui en tire le plus de valeur. Le système maximise le bonheur total de la cour. C'est ça, la main invisible.

Maintenant fais entrer la maîtresse. Elle trouve ça injuste. Léo a 50 cartes, Tom en a 3. Elle confisque, redistribue, impose l'égalité. Trois effets immédiats. Les bons joueurs arrêtent de jouer, à quoi bon. Les mauvais n'ont plus de raison de progresser, ils auront leur part. Les échanges s'effondrent. La cour est égale, et morte. Elle a maximisé l'égalité, elle a détruit le bonheur.

Le problème de la maîtresse, c'est qu'elle ne peut pas avoir l'information que la cour avait collectivement. C'est le problème du calcul économique de Mises, formulé en 1920. L'URSS a essayé de le résoudre pendant 70 ans avec le Gosplan. Résultat : pénuries, queues, effondrement. Pas parce que les Soviétiques étaient bêtes, parce que le problème est mathématiquement insoluble en mode centralisé.

Quand Musk a 200 milliards, il ne les consomme pas, il les alloue. SpaceX, Starlink, Neuralink, xAI. Chaque dollar est un pari sur le futur. Et lui a un track record. PayPal, Tesla, SpaceX. Il a démontré qu'il sait identifier des problèmes immenses et y allouer des ressources avec un rendement spectaculaire.

L'État aussi a un track record. Hôpitaux qui s'effondrent, éducation qui décline, dette qui explose, services publics qui se dégradent malgré des budgets en hausse constante. Le marché identifie les bons allocateurs, la politique identifie les bons communicants.

Le profit n'est pas une finalité, c'est un signal. Il dit : tu as alloué des ressources rares vers un usage que les gens valorisent suffisamment pour payer. Plus le profit est gros, plus la création de valeur est grande. Quand Starlink est rentable, ça veut dire que des millions de gens dans des zones rurales ont enfin internet. Quand un ministère est en déficit, ça veut dire qu'il consomme plus qu'il ne produit. L'un crée, l'autre détruit, et on appelle ça redistribution.

Dans nos sociétés il y a deux catégories d'acteurs. Les entrepreneurs et les bureaucrates. L'entrepreneur prend un risque personnel pour identifier un problème, mobiliser des ressources, créer une solution. S'il se trompe il perd. S'il a raison, ses clients gagnent, ses employés gagnent, ses fournisseurs gagnent, l'État collecte des impôts. Il est la cellule de base du progrès humain.

Le bureaucrate ne prend aucun risque personnel. Son salaire est garanti. Au mieux il maintient une rente existante. Au pire il la détruit par excès de réglementation, mauvaise allocation forcée, incitations perverses qui découragent ceux qui produisent. Mais dans aucun cas il ne crée.

Regarde les 50 dernières années. iPhone, internet civil, SpaceX, Tesla, Google, Amazon, Stripe, mRNA, ChatGPT. Toutes des inventions privées, portées par des entrepreneurs, financées par du capital risque. Pas un seul ministère n'a inventé quoi que ce soit qui ait changé ta vie au quotidien.

La France est devenue le laboratoire mondial de la dérive bureaucratique. 57% du PIB en dépenses publiques, record absolu. Une administration tentaculaire, une fiscalité qui pénalise la création de richesse. Résultat : décrochage face aux États-Unis, à l'Allemagne, à la Suisse. Fuite des cerveaux. Désindustrialisation. Dette qui explose.

Et le pire c'est que la mauvaise allocation s'auto-renforce. Plus l'État prélève, moins les entrepreneurs créent. Moins ils créent, moins il y a de base fiscale. Plus l'État s'endette et taxe. Boucle de rétroaction négative parfaite. La maîtresse pense qu'elle aide, et chaque année la cour produit moins.

Dans nos sociétés, ce sont les entrepreneurs, toujours, qui font avancer la civilisation. Les bureaucrates au mieux maintiennent une rente, au pire la détruisent. Aucune société n'a jamais progressé en taxant ses créateurs pour subventionner ses gestionnaires.

La question n'est jamais qui a combien. C'est qui alloue le mieux la prochaine unité de ressource pour maximiser le futur de l'humanité. La réponse depuis 200 ans n'a jamais changé. Ce ne sont pas les fonctionnaires.

[ThRoWnDaSmOke @CarterJG]

@Mubarak_mubious Recycling (plastics specifically, not metal) & health insurance/healthcare.

[ThRoWnDaSmOke @CarterJG]

@tonyiommi96 @Mubarak_mubious Wrong. Assets go up in dollar terms because the dollar devalues at 12.5% per year. In real money terms, Real Estate gets drastically cheaper year over year. Real Estate is entirely built on how far away you can get from the deadbeats and still make it to work on time.