The Economy

It's not a stability thing. It's a control thing. It's the difference between something that is decentralized (not being controlled by an authority) and something that is centralized (putting its users under an authority's control).

Cryptocurrencies are decentralized. The cryptography makes it so that a government can't track the usage and therefore control HOW it gets used as a form of money.

For all the ways central banks are going to sell digital currencies -- speed of moving money, cost savings of issuing a physical currency, support for underbanked people, government being able to make payments to people instantaneously -- the major reason they want our currency in digital form is that unlike a physical banknote, a digital version will allow the government to track and control its usage -- which gives them the ability to control all of us. You won't be able to transfer or spend or pay someone with that digital currency without some government entity immediately having a record of it. It also gives the potential to be able to dictate what it can and can't be used for.

So while DeSantis is doing dog whistles to people regarding certain kinds of government control that fit his culture war nonsense -- "they'll use it to impose an ESG agenda," "they'll restrict your ability to buy a rifle" -- the idea that it's authoritarian in nature is not wrong. It's exactly what this is about.

Digital currencies are going to be used to monitor how people use their own money. At best, you are going to have the IRS trying to turn every thing you do into a grab for your money (making you have to explain yourself like you work for them). At worst, it will become something even more insidious where politicians of all stripes try to tell you what you can and can't do with your own money. ... depending on what they want to impose on everyone. In that regard Ron DeSantis is as dangerous to me as the people he is acting like the savior from, because he has authoritarian goals (just different ones), too. He might try to tell you what books you can and can't buy, for example.

It's why decentralized cryptocurrencies and a government-issued digital currency are both digital in nature, but they are diametrically different. One is decentralized, making it so that nobody can track or control how you use it. Which conceptually protects your freedom from intrusion. The other is completely centralized and potentially puts you under the thumb of a government authority.

 

Workers should only be forced to risk their health to cover multiple jobs when they are paid proper compensation to be forced to risk their health.

 

1) In the Chick-fil-A video, she said her dad owns the restaurant. There is nothing new about kids working in family businesses. It can be a great way to learn responsibility and earn some money. There is nothing wrong or immoral about it.

2) Hiring a 14 or 15 year old to work in a fast food restaurant is not "exploitation." There is nothing immoral about someone giving a teenager a job or a teenager working to earn money.