Why we need a non-government backed, no-need for banks, decentralized, world-wide, deflationary currency:

The fact of the matter is, no matter how technologically cool Bitcoin might be, it still has a long, hard, uphill battle to fight if it’s going to be a currency or significant store of value.

Unlike Facebook or other straight-from-the-gate tech successes, most of the people who would benefit from holding or using Bitcoin don’t know they would, and often enough resist being shown how they would because there is something in place, cash, checks, and credit cards, that they grew up using and have never thought about questioning seriously.

Their lives depend on the current system of money, they have been taught to think they need to protect that money at nearly all cost, and a digital money just seems to hard and scammy for them to give it serious consideration. That’s why in most MSM reports about Bitcoin that we’ve been seeing, they still cite Bitcoin’s lack of general usability as a reason it won’t be generally usable. But of course, Facebook wasn’t Facebook when it was still The Facebook. It needed to develop, expand, and be built on top of.

Where Bitcoin is set to excel is as a crisis currency, and it’s in that role that I predict we’ll see its real breakout. Once it hits critical mass, that’s when we’ll see it be usable in your local store.

And I was reminded about this again when I was watching now-President Trump give his inaugural address. I would like to take a few minutes to jot down a few things he said and what they bode for the political, civil, and financial future of not only the US, but the world.

Every four years, we gather on these steps to carry out the orderly and peaceful transfer of power, and we are grateful to President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama for their gracious aid throughout this transition.

This seems innocuous at first, but it is also being said by a man who has himself a history of not honoring obligations. Fist and foremost I would just point to his statement that he would accept the results of the election if they went in his favor, suggesting that he would fight the results if they did not. Let’s also remember that Hillary received nearly 3 million more votes than Trump. What happens in four years if he is voted out of office. What happens if he elects not to be unelected? And, especially, if we still have a Republican House and Senate in addition to a Supreme Court. Is it possible we end up with a President Trump for life?

…we are not merely transferring power from one administration to another or from one party to another, but we are transferring power from Washington, D.C. and giving it back to you, the people.

First, again Hillary got significantly more votes than Trump, so although he won by the rules in place, the people have actually supported a different vision of America. Second, the policies that he is putting forward, although popular among some in the population, frequently are very unpopular with the plurality and will materially harm the lives and incomes of many who support him. Third, he has filled his cabinet with a who’s-who of billionaires and bankers who are surely licking their lips at the prospect of raiding the public pantry.

For too long, a small group in our nation’s capital has reaped the rewards of government while the people have borne the cost.

See above.

What truly matters is not which party controls our government, but whether our government is controlled by the people.

See above.

Americans want great schools for their children.

He has nominated Betsy DeVos, a billionaire shown who supports charter schools and voucher programs. She has also shown herself to be unacquainted with the actual problems of public education. Unfortunately (for us), providing everyone, no matter their socio-economic status, a quality education and an equal starting position in the job market is NOT a priority of the current administration. Rather, quality education is only for those who deserve it, and that’s defined by how much money you, or most likely, your parents have.

An education system flush with cash, but which leaves our young and beautiful students deprived of all knowledge; and the crime and the gangs and the drugs that have stolen too many lives and robbed our country of so much unrealized potential.

But of course, it is only certain parts of the education system that are flush with cash. Suburban schools in wealthy neighborhoods are indeed flush, paid for in property taxes. Schools in poor districts, though, have nowhere near the same access to money and the results are telling.

What’s also telling in this quote is that Trump identifies street crime as the real scourge of our society. Rather, street crime is more on the same level as a fever in the body. It’s a problem itself to be sure, but it tells of a deeper problem that must be addressed. Street criminals are usually acting out of desperation and hopelessness. Give them an education, career prospects, and hope, and that crime would drop to nordic country levels. The real sickness is the excess greed that lets 8 people control the wealth equal to half the world’s population. It’s billionaires rigging the system in their favor and then blaming the victims, the poor, for being victims.

Many who voted for Trump are disaffected and feel unheard. They’re right that the Democrats suck at this, but they Republicans directly work for the enemy, the billionaires and corporations who so distort the system.

The wealth of our middle class has been ripped from their homes and then redistributed all across the world.

I agree generally with Trump’s statement that we need to pull back on or military excursions abroad. I agree that we shouldn’t be the policeman of the world since we 1) haven’t done so well with it, and 2) those countries never appreciate it anyway. But, the notion that the wealth of our country has been sent abroad is ludicrous. The wealth of our nation has been given to wealthy companies and people, and one of the mechanisms they use is to send jobs abroad – to places where the people will work for pennies. Further, the evisceration of the unions, one of the few ways regular people can fight the autocratic power of their corporate employers has been consistently eroded by these same people and companies.

Every decision on trade, on taxes, on immigration, on foreign affairs will be made to benefit American workers and American families.

Take a look at who he’s put in his cabinet and the fact that his very first act as president was to raise taxes on people with mortgages..

We will build new roads and highways and bridges and airports and tunnels and railways all across our wonderful nation. We will get our people off of welfare and back to work, rebuilding our country with American hands and American labor.

If true, I will applaud him for this. Rebuilding the bridges and roads, plus all the other public infrastructure that makes America work, is decades overdue. But the devil is in the details. How will it be paid for? Who will get the profits? Will it involve privatizing these things? It’s important to watch, because we may find that the roads that are for us all, are now owned by Exxon.

At the bedrock of our politics will be a total allegiance to the United States of America.

This is a particularly scary idea. I am an American, am proud to be an American, and hope to promote the best of what America can be. You may have a different view of what those things are. It’s in discourse and respectful disagreement that we reach a public consensus (ideally). Constructive disagreement can be great, so no one person is likely to see all things clearly. But if the bedrock of our politics will be total allegiance to the United States of America, someone will be defining what being an American is and meting out punishment to those who don’t live up to those values. And that someone will be Donald John Trump. See witch trials and McCarthyism. My opinion will no longer have value. Only his.

When you open your heart to patriotism, there is no room for prejudice.

See his comments on the wall and on radical Islam. Of course we should have sensible, enforceable immigration policy, and of course we should protect ourselves from those who wish to hurt us. But Trump’s views on these things are completely unnuanced, and we have seen already incidents of racial and ethnic violence rising. Even George W had the sense to say that most muslims are peaceful and just trying to build a better life for themselves and their children. Even he understood that demonizing an entire set of people makes demons of all of them. It only serves to radicalize them as they grow fearful and resentful, and to spur fear and hatred of them. Nothing good comes of that.

The bible tells us how good and pleasant it is when God’s people live together in unity. We must speak our minds openly, debate our disagreements honestly, but always pursue solidarity. When America is united, America is totally unstoppable.

Nice sentiment that I generally agree with, except that  am also an atheist, and so I’ve been removed from the statement in the first two words. Also, see above.

Bitcoin is a crisis currency. In a perfect world where corporations act in the interests of their customers, and where government does it’s most important job of making sure that the weak are protected from the abuses of the powerful and privileged, then there would be no need of Bitcoin. Indeed, banks and governments might design something like it by themselves in the interest of the people.

But corporations and governments do not act in the interests of the people. So Bitcoin was created by a rogue programmer who has dropped completely, partly out of fear of what might be done to him for creating an unstoppable force working against the interests of the monied interests.

And if Trump empowers the powerful, radicalizes the radicals, and demonizes you and me for trying to make a better world, suddenly, Bitcoin is going to start looking like the better option to a whole lot of people.

Buckle up.