OT: Hurricanes Lounge XLI: It's August

[Unsustainable]

To be fair, it's the best idea anyone's had yet for selling drugs, stolen paintings, people, etc.

Kids these days with online shopping of drugs, do you what we had to do in the 90s to score a bag of weed.

 

[Lempo]

If this definition were true, then fiat currency would be a Ponzi scheme.

For what's it worth, the Finnish pension system most certainly is a Ponzi scheme.

 

[Navin R Slavin]

For what's it worth, the Finnish pension system most certainly is a Ponzi scheme.

If the state can compel taxation on future citizens, then it's not.

 

[Chrispy]

Yeah, no.

If this definition were true, then fiat currency would be a Ponzi scheme.

Crypto, for all its silliness, is just another value store that a sufficient number of people have agreed upon. If that wise? In my opinion, not particularly. Is it legal? Sure.

Is manipulating the value of this value store an actual crime? Looks like we're about to find out.

The SEC needs to just declare that crypto is a security and thus subject to all the same laws and restrictions.

But that’s the point: without some government or corporation backing the value, it is simply something that claims to be a currency with only its current owners propping it up to get more money in it.

And your solution at the end is to give it some sort of financial guarantee or backing by the government.

Without any financial backing, what is crypto?

I don’t have an issue with blockchain as a technology, but with that last line you come to where I am: without some sort of backing, its nothing.

 

[MinJaBen]

That's factually not the definition of a Ponzi Scheme. To be a Ponzi Scheme, you have to continually pay existing investors with the money of new investors, thus requiring an every increasing number of new investors. The person running the scheme is making payments out of a fraudulent investment fund of some sort. But in this case, buyers got exactly what they paid for- shares of dogecoin- and they did not buy it from Musk, nor was Musk managing the asset in any way. They purchased and sold on an open exchange. It was by no definition anywhere close to a Ponzi Scheme. Musk held shares of asset that he in no way controlled and he hyped up the value using his public platform and then sold his shares when the value was artificially high due to his influence. What Musk did was absolutely not a ponzi scheme, but it was a classic pump and dump. Illegal if you're doing it with stocks. With crypto, buyer beware.

Musk bought his beanie babies, told other people they should buy beanie babies, other people buy beanie babies, Musk sells his on ebay when everyone else is buying, thus getting a high return. Nobody is getting a fraudulent product- everybody still owns a beanie baby, as promised- it's just that that beanie baby winds up being worth less than it was when big public figure is promoting it.

The SEC vs Ripple may decide that there is no difference between a security and crypto.

 

[Navin R Slavin]

But that’s the point: without some government or corporation backing the value, it is simply something that claims to be a currency with only its current owners propping it up to get more money in it.

And your solution at the end is to give it some sort of financial guarantee or backing by the government.

Without any financial backing, what is crypto?

I don’t have an issue with blockchain as a technology, but with that last line you come to where I am: without some sort of backing, its nothing.

Literally any asset can be a value store if enough people agree that it is. You can say over and over that crypto has no value, but the people who hold it agree that it does, and they are thus willing to exchange it for other assets. One of its primary values to those that hold it is their belief that it can retain value when local currencies lose value -- which is very much a real value proposition in places where economies suffer from hyperinflation.

A Ponzi scheme is a very specific kind of fraud. It requires continual input by new investors to pay off old investors. It is fraud because it *promises* returns to new investors that the people selling the investment *know* will never be realized. Crypto, despite what some crypto bros say, makes no such guarantee. Its value my rise or fall. Like a security.

Can people use crypto in Ponzi schemes? Yes. People can use dollars in Ponzi schemes too.

Now, does all of this make crypto a good idea? No. But that doesn't make it illegal. It just makes it a risky asset.

 

[MinJaBen]

We really should start renaming these threads about why we closed them in the end:

Hurricanes Lounge XL: Guns debate killed this one
Hurricanes Lounge XLI: Musk Crypto strikes again

 

[HisIceness]

On the way home today Peter Griffin got mad at me for some unknown reason. Well it was a dude that looks like Peter Griffin.

But seriously, some people shouldn't be allowed behind the wheel of a car.

 

[VaCaps Fan]

I used Crypto to buy the Arizona Coyotes…

 

[Blueline Bomber]

On the way home today Peter Griffin got mad at me for some unknown reason. Well it was a dude that looks like Peter Griffin.

But seriously, some people shouldn't be allowed behind the wheel of a car.

A few months ago, I drove past a guy that was a dead ringer for Shaggy from Scooby Doo. Dressed the same as well. I was honestly tempted to stop and ask if I could take his picture, because it was uncanny.

And it was in December, so it wasn't a Halloween thing, and I don't think there was any kind of convention nearby, so it was just...Shaggy in the wild.

 

[Navin R Slavin]

A few months ago, I drove past a guy that was a dead ringer for Shaggy from Scooby Doo. Dressed the same as well. I was honestly tempted to stop and ask if I could take his picture, because it was uncanny.

And it was in December, so it wasn't a Halloween thing, and I don't think there was any kind of convention nearby, so it was just...Shaggy in the wild.

Zoinks!!!

 

[raynman]

Kids these days with online shopping of drugs, do you what we had to do in the 90s to score a bag of weed.

Same in the 00s and 10s haha. Met/knew a few sketchy individuals

 

[Chrispy]

I used Crypto to buy the Arizona Coyotes…

See!? ANOTHER thing people keep telling me has value!

 

[Negan4Coach]

If the state can compel taxation on future citizens, then it's not.

Financial chicanery imposed at the muzzle of a gun is always the best form of financial chicanery...

 

[Navin R Slavin]

Financial chicanery imposed at the muzzle of a gun is always the best form of financial chicanery...

It's certainly the most profitable.

 

[Stubu]

For what's it worth, the Finnish pension system most certainly is a Ponzi scheme.

Now I know how you voted.

(I'm still coping with the fact that the three leading parties were all within one percentage point of vote share. About a ten thousand buggers managed to turn all of Finland from a reasonably progressive and nicely growing economy and a good place to a right wing nutjob UK style austerity hellhole again. Bad for business.

Well, at least we'll have hockey.)

 

[Lempo]

Now I know how you voted.

(I'm still coping with the fact that the three leading parties were all within one percentage point of vote share. About a ten thousand buggers managed to turn all of Finland from a reasonably progressive and nicely growing economy and a good place to a right wing nutjob UK style austerity hellhole again. Bad for business.

Well, at least we'll have hockey.)

Guess away, I'm not sure if you'll get it right.

But, I personally pay 7.15 % pension fee for the salary I'm paid and my employer pay 25.30 % pension fee for the salary they pay me, and I don't really ever expect to actually be paid any pension while the current pensioners get paid with these monies. A Ponzi is a Ponzi.

And please don't you make yourself be so silly as some foreign commentators and some Finnish social media nitwits have made themselves be over the election result. Enough voters got to hands-on experience the price tag of red&green policies and Greens' Maria Ohisalo and the like wasn't but doubling down with them, and democracy ensued.

 

[Stubu]

I didn't get it right, then. Not to bore to death the actual Caniacs (you included) here with distant domestic poilitics but...

Okay, I know very little about pensions. Not quite yet my turf. Not far either so I should care more.

The Green party's Ohisalo was a small player. The Center's Saarikko got more than she should have. The government was dubbed Red & Green but have you seen how the business life reacted to it? The proverbial price tag from shedding most of gas and going to wind and hydrogen, not just for electricity but for industrial processes, starting from steel, I mean, it's a step forward. Investments in Finland broke a record in 2021 after the Covid year. Again in 2022. The ambitious 2035 carbon neutrality goal and the so-called green transition was very much a factor in that.

(There has been little of this in the news. My hot take, with some amazement now that I've started watching what the media is doing, is that Finland's mainstream newspapers somewhat favors the conservatives (NCP), the tabloids have the Daily Mail business model and of course favor the populists (FP), and the national broadcaster [think BBC or NPR] is scared shitless of looking any different in the crowd.)

Ah well. Like the not so fat lady sang, democracy ensued. I'm just pissed off at the media, especially at the influence the tabloids had, all for making money, is all.

Or maybe i'm a little bit ideological too. Darn, I should have pursued a career in hockey, there's always a FA market for LW

(If I didn't suck at hockey)

 

[Stubu]

(where is the pop.corn smiley gone?)

 

[Lempo]

The proverbial price tag from shedding most of gas and going to wind and hydrogen, not just for electricity but for industrial processes, starting from steel, I mean, it's a step forward.

Gas is and had always been a non-factor in Finland. The schedule for the announced hydrogen steel plant is completely unrealistic to make the whole thing look like a mad fantasy which was announced to the audiences for whatever reason.

 

[Stubu]

Gas is and had always been a non-factor in Finland. The schedule for the announced hydrogen steel plant is completely unrealistic to make the whole thing look like a mad fantasy which was announced to the audiences for whatever reason.

The SSAB hydrogen steel plant isn't fantasy (if Swedish, unfortunately, yet again) but that's only one piece of the puzzle. Hydrogen for more industry processes is the next step forward, but the real thing is coupling wind power on negative price days (when the grid doesn't need nor want any) to hydrogen production from seawater. The goal is to make our silly little country a hydrogen exporter.

Gas isn't just an alternative source of energy, it's imperative for some industries. Can't heat stuff enough without gas. Or hydrogen.

On a tangentially related note, do you know where I could find benchmarks of Lumi doing something with Helmi? We can't be having the world's 3rd fastest supercomputer and an actually working quantum computer doing nothing, the way they are coupled together. Or is that it... we shouldn't ask?

EdT: tpyo

 

[Lempo]

The SSAB hydrogen steel plant isn't fantasy

No, I was referring to the proposed Blastr Green Steel plant in Inkoo, or Wittusen Hydrogen & Steel Oy as it was also dubbed and then found out to be headquartered in a house in a Norwegian small village.

Meanwhile, the SSAB/LKAB/Vattenfall coal-neutral HYBRIT steel project has been in works since 2016, so since Sipilä's black-as-pot bourgeoise cabinet era.

Lumi and Helmi was the pandas, wasn't they?

 

[Stubu]

No, I was referring to the proposed Blastr Green Steel plant in Inkoo, or Wittusen Hydrogen & Steel Oy as it was also dubbed and then found out to be headquartered in a house in a Norwegian small village.

Meanwhile, the SSAB/LKAB/Vattenfall coal-neutral HYBRIT steel project has been in works since 2016, so since Sipilä's black-as-pot bourgeoise cabinet era.

Lumi and Helmi was the pandas, wasn't they?

Fair enough. I had my red flags up instantly about Blastr. One idiot/fraudster doesn't negate the idea. SSAB and Ovako, well, like you say, they continue with hydrogen process based steels,

Sipila's (2015-2019) cabinet did good things. I'm not black-as-pot-bottom bourgoisie and I'm not red-hot-wokey-wokey either. I haven't seen either extreme in the (Finn) cabinet in decades. It's been a consensus out of a combination of parties in the government.

No they weren't the pandas? They mucho alive and well. Explain.

 

[Lempo]

No they weren't the pandas? They mucho alive and well. Explain.

It was silly joke, one of the pandas is named Lumi. You were probably talking about quantum computers or somesuch.

 

[Stubu]

It was silly joke, one of the pandas is named Lumi. You were probably talking about quantum computers or somesuch.

D'oh! I graciously take the L and walk home. The electronic bits of me got the better of me. I understand nothing of quantum computers or how they are even supposed to work cuz obviously they can't and probably shouldn't, were they unionized.