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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   31685 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 5, 2022

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Do some of you work at banks? I can't imagine a world where writing this post would be seen as dangerous. Maybe this is just the initial offering meant to be as inoffensive as possible?

As for the content, I agree and don't have much to say about it.

Maybe this is just the initial offering meant to be as inoffensive as possible?

This.

I work at a bank and the post really doesn't strike me as a well thought out critique of the banking system. I'm quite a fan of moving to crypto for other reasons so I definitely think there are good critiques of the banking system, but that they don't pay much interest on zero risk deposits is not one of them.

Maybe this is just the initial offering meant to be as inoffensive as possible?

Based on the domain name? Buckle up for a wild ride.

Which is a shame, really. I'd love to see some serious examination of what the net effects of modern seigniorage are. Is it effectively a progressive wealth tax, because it only directly hits people with accumulated cash? Is it regressive overall (above what level of wealth?) because anybody with real wealth has most of it properly invested, or at least can afford longer term bonds, because there's only so much cash you need to have safe and liquid for emergencies? Is it also effectively a fee the US charges the rest of the world, either legitimately (a reserve currency with a nice stable slow inflation being better than most other "safe" stores of wealth) or illegitimately (insert petrowarfare conspiracy theory here)? Is it a systemic risk, because of the vicious cycle of inflation we'd expect if the dollar ever ceases being the obvious world reserve currency?

But I'm going to be sadly unsurprised if this just turns out to be "In my country there is problem", only aimed at a different target audience and not ironic.

See our explanation of the domain name here: https://www.themotte.org/post/221/culture-war-roundup-for-the-week/39692?context=8#context

Based on the domain name?

TIL that withheldforprivacy.com (used along with namecheap to register that site back in July) has a listed business address at Kalkofnsvegur 2, 101 Reykjavík, Ísland, 101 Reykjavík, Iceland. I'm sure that's just a coincidence.

All I could find with a casual search was this cease and desist related to a crypto scam run from such a withheld address. How curious.

Edit: I clicked your last link and now I understand the strategy much better.

Most likely the scam site before the domain was seized was registered using the same privacy service. It's a standard add-in offered by namecheap and every website registered with that service will list that address on the domain rather that whoever purchased it.

Money printing is a complicated topic but if we just take inflation aspect I'd argue it's best for the class of people for whom mortgages are a significant portion of their wealth and have a stable job that gives inflation adjusted raises. The very rich are pretty insulated as their wealth is invested and the poor don't have the money in the first places but may not have their pay as regularly raised to keep up with inflation. The benefit of the extra incentive to invest probably dominates and makes everyone better off.

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