MadMonzer
Epstein Files must have done something really awful for so many libs to want him released.
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User ID: 896
MadMonzer
Epstein Files must have done something really awful for so many libs to want him released.
5d ago
About 80% of $100 bills are outside the US. It isn't clear whether they are being used by crooks or as a bullion-equivalent by normies who don't trust their local currencies.
Based on these stats that works out as about $1.5 trillion of Benjamins held outside the US (15 billion notes), representing an interest-free loan to USG that covers a few percent of the national debt.
MadMonzer
Epstein Files must have done something really awful for so many libs to want him released.
5d ago
Again completely agreed, it's weird how the USA seems to be that one single country in the world where the price you see on labels is not the price you pay.
Canada add GST (their equivalent of VAT) and provincial sales tax at the till in the same way as America.
MadMonzer
Epstein Files must have done something really awful for so many libs to want him released.
5d ago
My understanding is that at the time the EUR was introduced in 2002, Germany still had sufficiently backward payments tech (for similar reasons to the US - basically a lot of small state-licensed banks and a culture that wanted to protect them against competition from large national banks with proper IT departments) that sometimes the only way to get a large transaction through on a same-day basis was to use a wad of 1000 DM notes. The 500 EUR note was a like-for-like replacement, and was no longer needed once Germany developed a nationwide electronic payments system that actually worked.
MadMonzer
Epstein Files must have done something really awful for so many libs to want him released.
5d ago
The 100k only existed as a gold certificate (and therefore illegal for private individuals to hold during the New Deal era when private holdings of gold were restricted). The 500, 1k, 5k and 10k existed in all forms of US currency including legal tender Federal Reserve Notes ("green" money). The original Binion's Horseshoe casino in Las Vegas (home of the WSOP) had a tourist attraction where you could be photographed in front of a million dollars in 10k bills.
As with all obsolete US currency, the large denomination notes are still legal money and a regulated bank should accept them for deposit at face value. They are rare enough that the numismatic value normally exceeds the face value, so this never happens.
MadMonzer
Epstein Files must have done something really awful for so many libs to want him released.
6d ago
Depends on the date. The SA was the Nazi militia before Hitler took power, and engaged in a lot of non-state political violence. After Hitler consolidated power it had become an embarrassment (it was also a hotbed of Nazis who took the "Socialist" part of "National Socialist" more seriously than Hitler's new industrialist buddies were comfortable with) so it was dealt with in the Night of the Long Knives.
MadMonzer
Epstein Files must have done something really awful for so many libs to want him released.
6d ago
America went to the moon and back before we opened the immigration floodgates
And I'm learning Chinese, says Wernher von Braun.
As well as the Project Paperclip scientists, George Mueller grew up in a German-speaking household so he wasn't exactly a "heritage American". The ancestors of Aldrin (grandson of Swedish immigrants) and Collins (long-established Irish-American family) wouldn't have been let in if the nativists of their day had won their political battles.
MadMonzer
Epstein Files must have done something really awful for so many libs to want him released.
6d ago
Both dogs and horses could be working animals and valued companions. I suspect the Neolithic dogs given honoured burials were hunting dogs, not housepets.
MadMonzer
Epstein Files must have done something really awful for so many libs to want him released.
6d ago
When a boss gives a speech to subordinates, we should at least consider the possibility that what he said was meant literally.
MadMonzer
Epstein Files must have done something really awful for so many libs to want him released.
6d ago
8-10. Most parents put considerable effort into the appearance of "Christmas magic". There's an adorable age where they're old enough to question, but afraid of what they might find out. They'll test their parents and gossip among themselves. But my own were afraid that if I knew that they knew, then I might not bother with the presents ritual, so they pretended to believe longer. And once it was explicit, they solemnly accepted the responsibility to not break the kayfabe for their younger cousins.
This is the point where the potential harm is. If a child spends 1-2 years thinking "Santa breaks my model of reality but I can't think deeply about this because the presents will stop coming" then they are learning to suppress curiosity for fear of punishment.
FWIW, I understood that Santa was the same type of being as God and Jesus*, as opposed to the same type of being as my Mum or the Queen, as early as I remember having complex thoughts - certainly before age 6. Having been taught about Santa therefore made me less likely to accept Christianity as an older child (whether this is good or bad is unclear). I had Santa, God and Jesus in the same bucket as Mickey Mouse and Peter the High King of Narnia by the time I was 9.
* My parents were not Christian, but the local primary school was a C of E school so I was partially raised Christian
MadMonzer
Epstein Files must have done something really awful for so many libs to want him released.
6d ago
There is free movement within borders. Open borders for one part of the country means open borders for all.
The fact that doing X (which is morally unproblematic of itself) makes it easier to do Y (which would be immoral) doesn't change the moral character of doing X-but-not-Y. As a matter of practical calculation, it might change the wisdom of banning X. Law and politics, not morals.
In the case of immigration, where X is migrating to a place where you are welcome, and Y is migrating to a different place in the same country where you are not welcome, there are good practical reasons for granting permission at the level of the sovereign state. But you absolutely can run a regime where legal immigrants can travel freely within a wider freedom-of-movement area while only enjoying the right to reside and work in the state that granted their visa - this is how Schengen visas work in the EU.
By far the best locations within western civilisation for this kind of business are the empty bits of the western US and the Australian Outback.
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