Fractional Reserve Bullying (Issue #175)
Useful info about UBI, China vs US in power, fun politics, the stablecoins & treasuries end game, macro analysis, well balanced double acts, a side order of techno and of course aliens.
Hello and welcome to my newsletter!
Another season 2 instalment…
This week is shaping up to be another epic tsunami week. They’ve cut off water, electricity, food, pretty much everything in the last few days. Weird synchronicities have gone through the roof, harassment, and I’m still shaken up from last week’s physical assault. It’s only Monday, but it feels like these escalations are just going to get worse, so I’m pausing while I still can to prepare the newsletter to ensure at least something gets sent out. There’s no theme apart from all the bullying at the minute.
If the week takes a turn for the better I’ll update with more pod reviews, but for now I need to conserve power, water and body energy.
Update: Slight turn for the better, so I managed to add 4 reviews and a couple of blog posts. The turn for the better was accompanied by all sorts of weirdness so I’ve been dealing with that and haven’t added as much as I’d hoped.
I wrote some blog posts:
Fractional reserve thinking https://markjgsmith.com/blog/2024/07/28/fractional-reserve-thinking
Bitcoin strategic sovereign reserves https://markjgsmith.com/blog/2024/08/01/bitcoin-strategic-sovereign-reserves
Stablecoins vs Treasuries vs CBDCs https://markjgsmith.com/blog/2024/08/02/stablecoins-vs-treasuries-vs-cbdcs
The piece about thinking is admittedly a bit weird. I’m surrounded by almost constant weirdness here where I am and obviously that eventually makes it’s way into the things I’m writing. But it’s born out of everyday life, so might be an indication of things to come in this timeline of the simulation we all find ourselves in at the minute. It occurs to me as I write this that eventually joking about being in a simulation will probably just turn into reality. Not sure how I feel about that. The simulation doesn’t care.
For all sorts of extra daily links and notes check out the website:
https://markjgsmith.com/blog
Here are the latest cool pods I listened to:
Podcasts
Mag-7 sell-off, Wiz rejects Google, UBI, Kamala in, China’s nuclear buildout, Sachs responds to PG (All-In Podcast) - I was pretty beat up when I listened to this on Saturday, having been starved for several days, and tsunami tsunamied several times by the gang stalkers, so I found it really difficult to concentrate while listening to this episode. The two standout things for me were the discussion around UBI and the later discussion around power comparing US and China capabilities and future plans. It’s all somewhat of a blur but I feel like it was a pretty good episode even if I didn’t agree with several things they brought up. It’s good insight and perspective. https://podcastindex.org/podcast/1015378?episode=25630700108
Bitcoin War Games with Matthew Pines (What Bitcoin Did Podcast) - I listened to this yesterday evening and much the same as the previous podcast, I was in quite a state from all the sustained bullying and starvation, so I didn’t take notes. I think I’m still shaken by last week’s physical assault or maybe I've got PTSD or something. I could hardly concentrate on any of it, but two things stood out. First was after Matthew got through much of his macro analysis, Peter commented sonething like "It feeld like we are living in a scripted reality". This is exactly how everything feels to me at the minute. The second thing was his roundup of the US aliens situation. I remember last time he was on his aliens analysis was anazing, and though I didn’t retain much from this episode, I remember very much enjoying it. I like aliens stuff. I guess this isn’t the best review ever, but it was a good episode, totally check it out. https://www.whatbitcoindid.com/podcast/bitcoin-war-games
Labour’s defining moment and the next Tory leader (The Rest is Politics Podcast) - Great episode with thorough analysis and roundup of UK politics, how the government handover is going, who is up for the Conservatives leadership position. Also what’s going on with the Bangladesh riots, the Olympics in France, Maduro in Venezuela. Rory has a bit of a man crush on Tom Tugendhat! But in all seriousness his Tugendhat review is quite spectacular. I thought he looked the part last week. Very interesting background, especially with his european connections and being bilingual, but kind of a scary vibe, which might make him the perfect opposition leader. Oh and a fascinating look at Pretty Patel’s Essex - Hertfordshire Christopher Walken style accent. More accent reviews please! https://podcastindex.org/podcast/5083933?episode=25796797649
The US government needs Bitcoin with Luke Gromen & Preston Pysh (What Bitcoin Did Podcast) - I wasn’t able to follow everything in this episode, it rapidly gets pretty complicated, but IMO there’s some very important information in there. It’s basically a macro discussion around how Bitcoin is intersecting with the old school financial system, how the interplay between stablecoins and treasuries is shaping up, and how this might affect and be affected by geo-politics. It gets very abstract in places, but they always bring the discussion back to grounded truths and examples. I think even if you don’t fully understand everything, seeing things through a Bitcoin lense gives you the ability to see where things are moving at least directionally. I’m wondering if there are stablecoins backed by chinese treasuries, that’s were the biggest productivity gains from recent years are currently. Somewhat sad to hear that it’s one of the last WBD episodes, it appears they are moving onto other ventures still to be announced. https://www.whatbitcoindid.com/podcast/the-us-government-needs-bitcoin
RA.947 Lydo (Resident Advisor Podcast) - I listenned to this mix by vietnamese - america electronic music artist last night. It’s pretty great, hard techno, gets pretty dark, especially at the end, I could totally imagine listening to this in a club with an incredible sound system. Probably quite good music to code to also. https://ra.co/exchange/947
Michael Malice (Joe Rogan Podcast) - I think Malice was previously on Rogan, and I think I really enjoyed their conversation. They are very well balanced together, I feel like they bring out the best in each other. It’s a very conspiracy heavy episode, so if you’re into that, you’ll enjoy this episode. All sorts of topics including the Biden body double, deep fakes & cheap fakes, sceptical being the new norm, Elon and free speech, Harris wine mom, Google memory holing, Trump shooter weirdnesses, Silk Road Ross Ulbricht, Prince Charles’ sausage fingers, aristocrats being perverts, prince Andrew loosing ability to sweat, 1000 space monkeys writing the Art of the Deal, and a whole lot more. If you have a few hours to chill, worth listening to. https://podcastindex.org/podcast/6786106?episode=25776800379
Hopefully next week will be better.
That’s all from me…
Best regards,
Mark
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