Month: March 2024

You may have noticed an increase in stories involving homeowners in blue states who can’t evict squatters due to various laws that make it extremely difficult to do so.

• Owner of LA mansion taken over by Airbnb squatter ‘from hell’ accuses her of extortion
• Airbnb host’s ‘tenant from hell’ also lived rent-free in an Oakland house
• I lived illegally in a house for 5 years – I took the time to fix it up and sued for legal ownership, now it’s mine
• California’s Housing Crisis Is So Bad, Families Are Squatting Abandoned Homes Just to Survive (Mother Jones, of course)

And more recently, a Queens woman was arrested after trying to evict squatters out of her house. 

As Michael Snyder of The Economic Collapse Blog wrote in February;

Thanks to online listings, it is easier than ever to identify properties that are vacant, and many states have laws that make it exceedingly difficult to get squatters out once they have settled in.  In some cases, squatters are able to live rent free in beautiful homes for months or even years.  This is becoming an absolutely massive problems, especially in certain areas of the country.  For example, it is being reported that squatters have taken over approximately 1,200 homes in the Atlanta area…

…

In the state of Washington, squatters have taken over an entire apartment complex and have turned it into a den of crime…

…

California also has ridiculous laws, and right now “a very sophisticated criminal ring of squatters” is making a ton of money from the Beverly Hills mansion that they have occupied…

Given the recent surge in squatting, a Los Angeles-based group known as the Squatter Squad has been making headlines for their novel approaches to evicting squatters; home inspectors and other legal techniques.

In a viral video from earlier this month, a team of Los Angeles home inspectors can be seen ejecting a group of around a dozen squatters, before entering the home, changing the locks and boarding up the windows, Fox News reports.

“The police are gonna come,” one of the squatters can be heard telling the inspectors in the front yard of a San Fernando Valley home.

“That’s fine,” the inspector replies. “We’re coming in.”

YES, More Of This 👏🏻

In California squatters are taking over people’s properties so this company called Squatter Squad is coming in and REMOVING THEM 🇺🇸

If they don’t want to come out & prove they’re on the lease, they’ll rip the doors off the property and force them out

If… pic.twitter.com/rCR8psO9OS

— Wall Street Apes (@WallStreetApes) March 22, 2024

Squatter Squad, which took the video, claims to have been legally removing squatters from property since 2018.

They use various legal techniques, applicable on a case by case basis, to remove people who invade homes and refuse to leave.

“This was a very tricky and complex job,” said Lando Thomas, a Squatter Squad member.

The intruders were under the impression that any entry into the house required a three-day notice obtained through court. However, they were wrong. A building inspection only requires a 24-hour notice and does not have to go through the court, he said. -Fox News

According to Thomas, the intruders thought that any entry into the home required a three-day notice obtained through the court – however they, being idiots, were wrong, as a building inspection only requires 24-hour notice and does not have to go through the court.

“We’re gonna press charges,” one squatter told them.

“That’s fine,” the inspector replied. “Take me to court.”

When the police showed up, they stood in the street and let the inspectors do their work while the squatters packed up their belongings and left.

Success! Until of course George Soros begins funding their lawsuits and California lawmakers ‘work their magic’ for their constituents.

Authored by Allison DeMajistre via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Researchers from the Heart Research Institute (HRI) in Australia have found that a common vegetable eaten by millions every day may be able to prevent and treat a leading cause of death worldwide.

The study, published in the journal ACS Central Science, shows results from a three-year investigation into how a natural chemical found in broccoli can help dissolve blood clots and improve the action of a common clot-busting drug used to treat an acute ischemic stroke.

Current Stroke Treatment

Every 40 seconds, someone in the United States suffers a stroke. In 2021, strokes accounted for one in every six deaths from cardiovascular disease.

There are two types of strokes: ischemic and hemorrhagic. An ischemic stroke occurs when a blood vessel in the brain is obstructed by a clot, while a hemorrhagic stroke results when a weakened vessel in the brain ruptures and causes bleeding inside the brain. According to the American Heart Association, ischemic stroke accounts for 87 percent of all strokes.

The only drug currently available to treat an acute ischemic stroke is tissue plasminogen activator (tPA), a thrombolytic agent that breaks up blood clots and restores adequate blood flow to the brain. Unfortunately, tPA comes with severe limitations and potential dangers, including bleeding into the brain with up to a 45 percent fatality rate when this occurs.

Xuyu Liu, the study’s lead researcher, who holds a doctorate in chemical biology, stated on the HRI website in 2022: “Current treatments are a double-edged sword—by clearing blood clots, it also means a patient has an increased risk of bleeding in the brain should they need emergency surgery. We are looking for clues in nature to find this magic anti-clotting drug which can work where it’s needed but also still allow patients to have antithrombotic treatments.”

HRI researchers discovered that the natural chemical in broccoli, sulforaphane, may improve the performance of tPA and could lead to newer, safer, and more effective medications for acute stroke.

“We know eating plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables and foods low in saturated fats can help prevent heart disease and stroke, but can some of these same vegetables treat and reverse stroke? I think it can and my team is working to prove it at the molecular level,” Mr. Liu said in the 2022 HRI interview.

Sulforaphane’s Protective Properties

In an Australian radio interview, Mr. Liu said his team began investigating broccoli and other cruciferous vegetables three years ago by screening a library of over 100 natural products from healthy diets to find something with properties that would prevent blood clots in the brain.

Mr. Liu’s background included finding ways to prevent cancer with a healthy diet, but when he transitioned into his current role at the HRI, he decided to study sulforaphane derived from cruciferous vegetables and how it could potentially treat blood clots in the circulatory system.

According to Mr. Liu, sulforaphane isn’t limited to broccoli. In the radio interview, he said that cruciferous vegetables produce sulforaphane as a protective mechanism against insects or other types of destruction.

For instance, an intact piece of broccoli doesn’t contain sulforaphane. It isn’t until it’s chopped or chewed that it undergoes a chemical reaction that produces sulforaphane. Sulforaphane’s antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties are designed to protect the plant, but when ingested by humans, studies have found sulforaphane has numerous anti-cancer and health-protective qualities.

Results and Next Steps

“What we found in a preclinical trial is that the tPA success rate increases to 60 per cent [sic] when the medication is given with the broccoli-derived [sulforaphane],” Mr. Liu said in an HRI interview. “Excitingly, this naturally occurring compound does not cause any signs of bleeding, which is a common side effect associated with blood-thinning agents tested in stroke treatment.”

Preclinical testing showed that administering sulforaphane reduced the formation of blood clots while improving the action of tPA. Initial testing also found that sulforaphane could slow the onset of stroke.

“Not only is the broccoli compound effective in improving the performance of clot-busting medication after a stroke, it could be used as a preventative agent for patients who are at a high risk of stroke,” said Mr. Liu.

Mr. Liu’s next step is to raise funding for human clinical trials with the hope of developing a new preventative and anti-clotting treatment within five years. “This natural product has been used to prevent cancer before, so I think we have a strong rationale in terms of safety and other pharmacological properties,” he said in the radio interview.

Israel’s military has stepped up its airstrikes on the southern Gaza city Rafah in the last two days, on Wednesday bombing at least four homes, raising fears that the planned ground assault is imminent, despite the UN Security Council having just issued an official call for immediate ceasefire.

Gaza health officials said that one of these airstrikes killed eleven people from a single family, as cited in Reuters. One local eyewitness, Jamil Abu Houri, described that “The bombing has increased, and they have threatened us with an incursion, and they say that have been given the green light for the Rafah incursion. Where is the Security Council?”

While UNSC resolutions calling for ceasefire tend to be more symbolic than having real immediate impact, the formal resolution definitely ratcheted the pressure on Israel, and created tension with the White House given that it was the US abstention which allowed it to pass in the first place.

As for the timing of a ground invasion of Rafah, regional media has cited Israeli military sources who say it will begin soon after the Muslim fasting season Ramadan is finished:

The pro-Hezbollah Al-Akhbar daily, citing Egyptian sources who were said to have been in contact with Israel Defense Forces officials, reported that the expected offensive would come after Eid al-Fitr — the three-day holiday that follows Ramadan and ends around April 12 — or in early May at the latest.

The ground incursion inside the last bastion of Hamas in the Gaza Strip would last from four to eight weeks, the sources said, and would be accompanied by an evacuation of the civilian population sheltering in Rafah, which amounts to about 1.5 million people, toward the center of the Strip along specific routes and at specific times, announced to civilians in each area of the city in advance.

The Monday UNSC ceasefire resolution had resulted in PM Netanyahu canceling a top Israeli delegation’s expected visit to the White House this week. The Biden administration slammed the move as an “overreaction”.

On Thursday Netanyahu has reversed course, apparently. “Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is planning to send two top Israeli officials to Washington as early as next week for talks about a possible military operation in Rafah,” officials told Axios.

“The Prime Minister’s office has agreed to reschedule the meeting dedicated to Rafah,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre announced, citing the need for “urgent” discussion on Rafah. According to more from Axios:

A U.S. official told Axios cancelling the trip and the rhetoric around it was “an unnecessary drama on Netanyahu’s part.”

A senior Israeli official agreed and said: “Bibi made a mistake.” She said: “We are now working on a convenient date that will work for both sides.”

🚨🇮🇱 ISRAEL is carrying out a MASSIVE BOMBING campaign on Rafah. So much more that UN ceasefire resolution. pic.twitter.com/Mo9rZzc85W

— Jackson Hinkle 🇺🇸 (@jacksonhinklle) March 27, 2024

Starting early this month President Biden had issued a ‘red line’ for the first time over Rafah, warning Israel against attacking the southern enclave which is still packed with over one million internally displaced refugees. Washington has repeatedly called on Israel to facilitate a mass exodus of civilians before any assault takes place. But Israeli officials say the military must go in to eradicate Hamas.

Authored by Vibhu Vikramaditya via The Mises Institute,

Herbert Hoover’s presidency is often mythically mischaracterized as a period of strict nonintervention in the economy. However, it was in fact defined by a series of economic maneuvers that not only deviated from laissez-faire ideology, but also significantly contributed to the onset of the Great Depression. He initiated his term in 1929 with a proactive push by establishing the Federal Farm Board and later the Reconstruction Finance Corporation. These testified to his interventionist approach, aimed at countering economic instability with federal support that ranged from agricultural price supports to protective tariffs and substantial public works investments. These policies failed to grasp the underlying economic frailties that, combined with a long recession in overexpanded agriculture, inadvertently magnified the crisis.

The Long Recession in American Agriculture

World War I, primarily waged in Europe, signaled the decline of the old elites and the end of nineteenth-century liberal economic practices. It fundamentally altered American agriculture because European resources once dedicated to food production had shifted to military needs. This caused a surge in demand for food exports and other essentials from the neutral United States. The beginning of World War I in 1914 ignited a period of economic prosperity for American farmers. This demand led to an increase in prices for various farm products. For example, in Minnesota, the average price of corn per bushel increased from fifty-nine cents in 1914 to $1.30 in 1919, and wheat prices saw a rise from $1.05 per bushel to $2.34. The prices of hogs and milk experienced similar surges.

To fulfill this rising demand, the US government urged farmers to augment their production, and it made credit more elastic. The Federal Farm Loan Act was established by Congress in 1916, introducing twelve federal land banks designed to provide enduring loans for the expansion of farms. Many farmers seized this and similar opportunities, investing in additional land and modern equipment because they expected the economic surge to persist. They invested in land, tractors, and other new labor-saving equipment at interest rates ranging from 5 to 7 percent. By 1920, 52.4 percent of the 132,744 Minnesota farms reporting to the Census of Agriculture carried mortgage debt, totaling more than $254 million.

Thus, after entering World War I in 1917, the US saw significant agricultural expansion, especially in the Midwest’s wheat and corn areas. Minnesota’s land prices doubled between 1910 and 1920 due to high demand, and by 1929, its farmland cultivation had soared to 18.5 million acres. However, following the wartime boom in agriculture, Europe recuperated from the war’s devastation, and postwar relief efforts were required to keep the demand for US agricultural exports—like grains, pork, beef, and dairy—high from 1918 to 1919.

US farmers continued to increase production expecting stable demand and prices, but they were met with a gradual economic decline that plummeted further during the Great Depression. Minnesota farmers’ income dramatically dropped from $438 million in 1918 to a mere $229 million in 1922. It continued to decline, plagued throughout the ’20s as a hangover from the unsustainable wartime boom, finally plummeting in 1932 to $155 million. Grounded in the progressive ethos of the time, Hoover sought to actively intervene in the agricultural economy to bring about stability and prosperity. His belief in cooperation between the government and business sectors served as a fundamental principle guiding his policy initiatives as the secretary of commerce from 1921 to 1928.

Hoover recognized the issues of overproduction and subsequently plummeting prices, but he was oblivious to the role that the government had played in overproduction by encouraging overexpansion. He advanced the idea of cooperative marketing associations in the belief that by banding together to sell their products, farmers could stabilize prices and increase their bargaining power, which would mitigate the influence of middlemen and reduce market volatility. This agricultural crisis saw the US becoming heavily protectionist, with heavy tariff impositions on imports (in 1921 and 1922) to prop up domestic agricultural prices. Every possible action was undertaken to avoid the temporary pain of trimming overexpanded industries, which would have allowed capital, labor, and land to find more profitable uses than agriculture.

This, then, was Hoover’s underlying experience with American agriculture during the Roaring Twenties as secretary of commerce while another sector of the economy, manufacturing and industry, was booming. His experience with agriculture played a determining role in his response to the recession during 1929–30, and it was his actions as the commerce secretary—and misunderstanding the causes of the ills of agriculture—that prepared the ground for the Great Depression. He applied his precedent of dealing with the 1920s crisis in agriculture with an engineered central plan, in the same way as he did during the 1929 crisis throughout the entire economy.

The war had transformed the US into an economic behemoth. It was the sole major nation remaining steadfastly on the gold standard, which attracted a gold influx as global investment shifted stateside. This influx had the potential to stimulate economic expansion and rejuvenate agriculture, yet the Federal Reserve’s nascent policies were also pivotal in shaping this outcome. In the post–World War I period, the Federal Reserve (newly created in 1913) embarked on a strategy of lowering discount rates to facilitate borrowing and liquidity. In the early 1920s, the New York discount rate was cut from 6.5 to 4 percent, a stark reduction aimed at invigorating economic activity. This policy contributed to a significant uptick in the money supply, with an annual expansion rate of about 7.7 percent from 1921 to 1928. The surge in liquidity and easy credit fueled speculative investments, inflating capital goods, stock, and real estate values to unsustainable highs. When the Fed tightened interest rates in 1928 and 1929 to curb speculation, the boom faded, leaving the still-struggling agricultural sector behind.

Setting up the Great Depression

Upon becoming president in March 1929, Hoover launched the Federal Farm Board with $500 million to manage agricultural prices by handling surplus goods—a significant move to aid farmers by aiming for price stability and more reliable incomes. Yet this effort essentially propped up artificially high prices in a sector needing adjustment through brief deflation. Following the 1929 crash, Hoover extended these interventionist tactics to the broader economy, thus replicating the agricultural sector’s stagnation across the entire economic landscape. Hoover subscribed to the wage theory of recessions, which held that the lack of spending power among the workers was the source of the slump and overproduction. In response to the economic crisis, Hoover convened several economic conferences, gathering business and labor leaders to formulate strategies for economic stabilization and recovery.

Central to these discussions was the issue of wages. Hoover strongly advocated against wage reductions, positing that wage maintenance would preserve workers’ purchasing power, thus sustaining demand and preventing further economic decline. The policy faced obvious and significant opposition from business leaders, who argued that wage maintenance exacerbated unemployment by discouraging hiring and straining business finances. Despite the fact that it had always been the norm for wages and prices to fall during recessions, Hoover remained stern and thus precipitated more unemployment as businesses went bankrupt paying artificially high wages.

Hoover responded to rising unemployment and economic stagnation by boosting federal investment in public works, notably speeding up the construction of projects like the Hoover Dam. These efforts sought to generate jobs, stimulate industry, and improve infrastructure. However, despite these ambitious objectives, the public works programs fell short, unable to address the root issues of overexpansion across multiple sectors. In 1930, Hoover signed the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act despite a petition from more than a thousand economists urging him to veto the legislation as it was a misguided attempt to shield US businesses and farmers from international competition through imposing high tariffs on imported goods. Although intended to protect domestic industries during the onset of the Great Depression, it proved counterproductive, exacerbating both deflation and inflation and hindering recovery.

The act’s protectionist approach ironically perpetuated deflation by raising import duties to record levels, stifling trade and economic growth. It also disrupted price adjustments needed for recovery, as the raised import prices led to inflationary increased domestic prices, discouraging consumer spending. Far from promoting economic recovery, the act provoked international retaliation, sparking a global trade war. This retaliation saw US imports and exports nosedive by 66 percent and 61 percent respectively between 1929 and 1932, thus undermining any recovery efforts and leading to a decline in output.

Similar to his efforts in agriculture, Hoover established the Reconstruction Finance Corporation in 1932, marking a significant escalation in federal economic intervention. The Reconstruction Finance Corporation was tasked with providing crucial financial assistance to banks, railroads, and other major industries, aiming to prevent further economic collapse by ensuring these sectors’ continued operational viability. It had the same effect of propping up the artificially inflated capital values of banks, firms, and major businesses that actually needed quick and thorough liquidations, as had occurred in earlier historical downturns.

In conclusion, the onset of the Great Depression was significantly influenced by misdirected government interventions. The agricultural boom and subsequent bust, coupled with Herbert Hoover’s policies—including the establishment of the Federal Farm Board and the Reconstruction Finance Corporation as well as the enactment of the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act—distorted economic realities. These actions, intended to bolster the economy, ironically contributed to the very crisis they sought to prevent, showcasing the delicate balance between policy and economic health.

The United States and Japan are poised to unveil their largest defense treaty revision in decades. The FT has reported that President Joe Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida are soon to “announce plans to reorganize the U.S. armed forces in Japan to strengthen the development of operational plans and training of the U.S.-Japan at the summit in Washington D.C. on the 10th of next month.”

Crucially the new agreement is expected to invest the three-star commander of the US Forces in Japan with more operational authority. As it currently stands, and following the development of the US-Japan Security Treaty first signed in 1960, the US commander is required to coordinate approval for operations with US Indo-Pacific Command based out of Hawaii. 

All of this comes amid the backdrop of China-Taiwan tensions being continually on the rise, and as North Korea flexes its military might in response to joint US-South Korea drills on the peninsula.

Japan currently hosts an estimated 54,000 US military troops plus another at least 8,000 US civilian contractors. Recently there were fears that a Western troop presence would be expanded in Japan with the proposed opening of a NATO office there, but the plan was nixed after strong protestations from Beijing.

Analyzing the coming upgrade to the US-Japan defense treaty, one regional report explains: “This review responds to criticisms that it is inconvenient for rapid response in case of emergency because of the distance between the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command in Hawaii and the Japan Self-Defense Forces, which are 3850 miles away and have a 19-hour time difference.”

Prime Minister Kishida has made it a theme of the past couple years that Tokyo is committed to making great strides at becoming an unambiguous regional and “strategic leader” as a “security provider in the Indo-Pacific.” However, Japan officials have long emphasized a stronger armed forces primarily for the sake of ‘deterrence’ – something which Washington has encouraged. Naturally, China doesn’t see these developments as merely for deterrence.

President Joe Biden has nominated Air Force Maj. Gen. Stephen F. Jost to take command of U.S. Forces Japan, according to a Pentagon news release Monday.https://t.co/84Q2tSBKqp

— Stars and Stripes (@starsandstripes) March 27, 2024

The past two years has also witnessed a flurry of activity between the US and Japan at numerous levels of government especially focusing on an overhaul in the U.S.–Japan defense posture and strategy. There’s also been a plan in motion for a restructuring Marine Corps forces stationed on and around Okinawa.

By Tsvetana Paraskova of OilPrice.com

Baltimore Port’s coal exports are likely to be blocked for weeks after the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge on Tuesday, according to a Pennsylvania coal trading firm.  

The bridge collapsed early on Tuesday after a cargo ship lost power and slammed into the construction, which crumbled within seconds and will disrupt navigation near the Baltimore port, which is one of the biggest coal export terminals in America.

Baltimore is the nation’s second-largest coal exporting port after Norfolk, Virginia, according to data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA). In 2022, about one-fifth of U.S. coal exports left through Baltimore.

The port of Baltimore is also one of the 20 largest ports in the U.S. and handles both coal and petroleum products.

Following the bridge collapse, up to 2.5 million tons of coal exports from Baltimore could be blocked for up to six weeks, Ernie Thrasher, CEO at Pennsylvania coal trading firm Xcoal Energy & Resources, told Bloomberg.

“You’ll see some diversion to other ports but the other ports are pretty busy,” Thrasher added. 

“There’s a limit on how much you can divert,” said the executive, whose firm works with several coal suppliers. 

Globally, the disrupted exports are unlikely to have a huge impact on coal prices, but many coal cargoes from Baltimore are typically headed for India, so there the impact could be felt along the supply chain, Thrasher told Bloomberg.

At any rate, the bridge collapse has already disrupted coal shipments and delivery times.

For example, rail company CSX, which owns the Curtis Bay coal pier in Baltimore, told Reuters on Tuesday that existing coal customers should expect “potential shipment delays.”

Coal producer CONSOL Energy said vessel access in and out of the CONSOL Marine Terminal, located in the Port of Baltimore, has been delayed. As of Tuesday morning, the company did not have a definitive timeline of when vessel access or normal operations will resume.

Former President Donald Trump on Wednesday responded to a gag order issued in his “hush money” case, slamming both the judge and his daughter – who allegedly posted a picture of Trump behind bars on social media.

Judge Juan Merchan, who is presiding over the case in which Trump is accused of making ‘hush money’ payments to adult film actress Stormy Daniels in the 2016 election, issued a gag order blocking Trump fromm making public comments about the court staff, jurors, witnesses, or prosecutors in the case.

“Given that the eve of trial is upon us, it is without question that the imminency of the risk of harm is now paramount,” Merchan wrote.

Trump Responds

On Wednesday, Trump took to his social media platform, Truth Social, claiming that the decision imperils his First Amendment rights. Trump also took aim at Merchan’s adult daughter.

Merchan, Trump wrote, “is suffering from an acute case of Trump Derangement Syndrome,” adding that Merchan’s “daughter represents Crooked Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Adam ‘Shifty’ Schiff, and other Radical Liberals,” adding that she allegedly “has just posted a picture of me behind bars, her obvious goal, and makes it completely impossible for me to get a fair trial.”

“This Judge, by issuing a vicious ‘Gag Order,’ is wrongfully attempting to deprive me of my First Amendment Right to speak out against the Weaponization of Law Enforcement, including the fact that Crooked Joe Biden, Merrick Garland, and their Hacks and Thugs are tracking and following me all across the Country, obsessively trying to persecute me, while everyone knows I have done nothing wrong!” the post continues.

Constitutional law professor Jonathan Turley suggests appealing the order, writing on his blog;

New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan this week became the latest court to impose a gag order on former president Donald Trump with a stinging order that found a history of Trump attacks that threatened the administration of justice. The order will bar public criticism of figures who are at the center of the public debate over this trial and the allegation of the weaponization of the legal system for political purposes, including former Trump counsel Michael Cohen, former stripper Stormy Daniels, and lead prosecutor Matthew Colangelo. Trump is still able to criticize Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and Merchan himself.  What is most striking is the protection of Cohen who continues to goad Trump in public attacks.

While many of us have criticized past attacks by the former president of judges and staff associated with cases, theses gag orders raise very serious free speech questions in my view. Prosecutors like Special Counsel Jack Smith and Bragg have pushed for a trial before the election. (Recently, Smith even stated that he may force Trump into a trial running up to or even through the election).

After these charges were delayed until just before an election, they have maintained that it is essential to try Trump before November.  The timing of charges and proposed trial dates were the choice of these prosecutors. If judges are inclined to facilitate the effort for a pre-election trial, they should show some recognition of the unique context for such prosecution. Yet, judges like federal District Judge Tanya Chutkan have stated that she will not make any accommodation for the fact that Trump is the leading candidate for the presidency.

I was previously highly critical of the efforts of Smith to gag Trump before the election. In my view, the order issued by Judge Chutkan was unconstitutional. I have opposed gag orders in many cases for decades as inimical to constitutional free speech rights.

The barring of Trump from criticizing jurors or court staff (or family members) is largely uncontroversial. However, Cohen and Daniels have long been part of the political campaigns going back to 2016. Indeed, I was highly critical of Cohen when he was still the thuggish lawyer for Trump. He is now one of the loudest critics of his former client and has made continual media appearances, including on his expected appearance in this case.

Cohen’s appearance on the stand will only add to the lawfare claims given the recent view of a judge that he is a serial perjurer who appears to be continuing to game the legal system.

Cohen ironically went public to criticize Trump and celebrate the gagging of him:

“I want to thank Judge Merchan for imposing the gag order as I have been under relentless assault from Donald’s MAGA supporters. Nevertheless, knowing Donald as well as I do, he will seek to defy the gag order by employing others within his circle to do his bidding, regardless of consequence.”

Many Americans view the Bragg case as a raw political effort and many experts (including myself) view the case as legally flawed. Some polls show that a majority now believe the Trump prosecutions generally are “politically motivated.”

This election could well turn on the allegation of lawfare. However, Merchan has now largely bagged the leading candidate (and alleged target of this weaponization) from being able to criticize key figures behind the effort.

The inclusion of Colangelo in the order is equally problematic. Trump has campaigned on his involvement in a variety of cases targeting him in his federal and state systems. His movement between cases is viewed by many as evidence of a “get Trump” campaign of prosecutors. He is currently the most talked about figure that many, including Trump, view as showing coordination between these cases and investigations.

My opposition to past gag orders was based on the constitutional right of defendants to criticize their prosecutions. Courts have gradually expanded both the scope and use of such orders. It has gone from being relatively rare to commonplace.  However, the use to gag the leading candidate for the presidency in the final months of the campaign only magnifies those concerns.

There is a division on courts in dealing with such challenges involving politicians. For example, a court struggled with those issues in the corruption trial of Rep. Harold E. Ford Sr. (D–Tenn.). The district court barred Ford from making any “extrajudicial statement that a reasonable person would expect to be disseminated by means of public communication,” including criticism of the motives of the government or basis, merits, or evidence of the prosecution.

The United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit rejected the gag order as overbroad and stressed that any such limits on free speech should be treated as “presumptively void and may be upheld only on the basis of a clear showing that an exercise of First Amendment rights will interfere with the rights of the parties to a fair trial.”

This order allows for criticism of the case and both Merchan and Bragg. However, you have key figures like Cohen and Coangelo who are already central figures in this political campaign. In Cohen’s case, he has actively engaged in a campaign to block Trump politically and has done countless interviews on this case as part of the legal campaign.

While courts routinely rubber stamp such orders (and Trump’s history will reinforce the basis of the Merchan order), I would still try to appeal it.  The odds always run against challenging such orders and appellate courts are disinclined to even review such orders. However, there is a legitimate free speech concern raised by this order that should be reviewed by higher courts.

Authored by Charles Lipson via RealClear Politics,

Polling data shows Democrats are in deep trouble on the issues of domestic safety and unbiased justice. Voters say they want law and order and aren’t getting it. They want enforcement of criminal statutes duly passed by their representatives. They abhor favoritism for some and targeting for others. They want personal safety and basic fairness. They deserve them. And they are angry.

They resent the wide-open border, street shootings, street-corner gangs dealing drugs, carjackings, and unchecked shoplifting. They are stunned that squatters can simply take over houses from their rightful owners. They are troubled by the aggressive prosecution of Donald Trump, while Joe Biden skips away from his family’s extensive grifting operation and a garage full of classified documents.

Although these issues are usually considered separately, they are also important together. The concerns overlap and reinforce each other, harming Biden and his political party. Democrats are seen as weak on crime and feckless on border security, but relentless in prosecuting their principal election opponent and trying to bankrupt him.

Any consideration of law and order as a political issue should begin with the basic obligation of governments at all levels. In liberal democracies, the state should provide that safety with due respect for each citizen’s constitutional rights, without undue force, and without favoritism or political bias. The goal is to let citizens pursue their own private goals in peace, feeling secure in their lives, property, and home life. In democracies like ours, that order must be secured by enforcing statutes and rulings by courts. When disputes arise, as they often do, they should be settled by neutral third parties, either courts or arbiters, using well-established laws and procedures. When state prosecutors are involved, their responsibility is to act without bias, partisanship, or favoritism. Remember, they are part of the executive branch. They are not legislative monarchs. They don’t get to make laws themselves or disregard those that have been passed.

When does government fail to meet those obligations? It fails when the executive branch:

• Exceeds its discretionary authority to ignore the enforcement of some laws against some people but vigorously enforces them against others; and
• Flouts the basic obligation to enforce laws fairly, without partisanship and within constitutional limits.

This failure is particularly noxious when the state targets political enemies or disfavored people, such as African Americans in the segregationist South – or conservative populists and their leaders today.

What Americans feel today is a mounting sense that these violations are piling up and that they harm safety, property, and civil rights of citizens in a democracy.

First, they see an erosion of social order. That’s not a problem caused entirely by government. Local communities are also responsible. Violent crime is concentrated among the poor, particularly in black communities because of a breakdown in family life, the disintegration of social norms, and the lack of decent schooling and job opportunities. They don’t trust the police because of hard experience: decades of brutal mistreatment.

These problems have been amplified because of atrocious public policies that go uncorrected after years of failure. Public schools are dreadful in almost every major U.S. city. They are really employment programs for teachers protected by powerful unions. They don’t prepare students for the modern workforce or instill the knowledge and values needed for citizenship. (That failure is why Republican-controlled states are now moving rapidly to give parents school choice, including the funds to educate their children in private schools.)

Progressive cities and states have been unwilling to enforce laws protecting people and property on the specious grounds that doing so would jail too many minorities and thus undermine “social justice.” But don’t people in impoverished communities have as much right to live in peace and safety as people in middle-class neighborhoods? Shouldn’t they have a chance to shop in local stores, rather than see them closed because of rampant organized shoplifting and strong-armed robberies which go unprosecuted and, hence, undeterred? Shouldn’t they be able to stop at the gas station and fill up their cars without fear of carjacking? Shouldn’t they be able to walk the streets or sit on their front porch, rather than huddle inside, afraid of street-corner drug gangs and random shootings? It’s a perversion of language to call these dysfunctional public policies “progressive.”

The breakdown of civic order was obvious in the rioting and arson that followed the death of George Floyd in 2020. Almost no one was punished. The Democratic National Convention, held that summer, spent far more time genuflecting to the rioters’ grievances than condemning the riots themselves. Many speakers focused their outrage on police forces across the country.

The most “progressive” politicians advocated the outright abolition of local police forces. The effects on public safety were utterly predictable. Surprisingly, it wasn’t butterflies, rainbows, and unicorns. If there was a pot of gold, it was looted.

Second, voters see a president and a party utterly unwilling to enforce border laws. Controlling entry into the country is a basic feature of every country’s sovereignty. Citizens know it. They also know Joe Biden inherited a border that was largely (but not completely) secure. In his first week as president, Biden systematically dismantled the policies that ensured border control.

We are living with the consequences of this president’s catastrophic decisions. Since he took office, between 7 and 10 million people have crossed the border illegally. With them have come vast quantities of illegal drugs, manufactured in Mexico from precursor chemicals sent from China. Those drugs kill some 100,000 Americans each year. No one has any idea how many spies and terrorists have also infiltrated. When the state of Texas, fed up with an open border, erected its own barbed wire barrier (it worked), the Biden administration’s Department of Justice sued to have it removed without offering any substitute.

The massive influx of illegal immigrants is crushing city and state budgets. Those jurisdictions simply don’t have the money to provide housing, schooling, food, or medical care for this huge population of indigents. They can’t cope with the violent criminal gangs that have immigrated (some from as far away as Chile), have enriched themselves with drug sales and human trafficking, and have become entrenched across the U.S.

Some financial effects of this influx are currently hidden but will be felt soon. I was privately informed that a major research hospital, far from the southern border, is now losing over $1 billion per year in uncompensated medical care for illegal aliens. Numbers like that will soon break the hospital and others like it across America. If Washington picks up the tab, it will be another massive hit to the deficit.

Democrats have become so entrapped by these problems that they can no longer speak straight. They cannot say the plain words, “illegal immigration.” They faint at the words “illegal alien,” a term used in statutes for decades. Today’s Democrats condemn that language and try to mask the harsh reality with gooey phrases like “asylum seekers” (very few qualify), “irregular immigration,” and even “newcomers.”

Evasive phrases like these may be popular in toney Greenwich, Connecticut, but not in Gary, Indiana. The growing anger in poor, minority communities about crime and illegal immigration is a serious problem for Democrats, who can’t win without overwhelming support and turnout from African Americans. They are none too happy about competing with illegal immigrants for lower-skilled jobs and public resources.

Democrats didn’t expect that problem with their core constituency. Nor did they expect it from Hispanics, who voted overwhelming for Biden in 2020 but are now slipping away. Whether that shift among Hispanics is temporary or permanent will affect elections for years to come. In either case, it will affect the outcome in 2024.

Third, while the federal government and blue states are steadfastly refusing to enforce basic laws on immigration, theft, squatting, and so on, they are simultaneously mounting zealous legal attacks on Biden’s general election opponent. Several states tried to keep him off the 2024 ballot until the Supreme Court stopped them. Prosecutors in New York and Georgia, plus Biden’s Department of Justice, are now trying to imprison Donald Trump, tie him down in court during the campaign season for alleged misdeeds that happened years ago, while also hoping to break him financially, a process led by local prosecutors who campaigned on the promise to “get Trump.” As Letitia James once told a supporter, “We’re definitely gonna sue him, we’re gonna be a real pain in the a–.“

In fulfilling that promise, James and fellow partisan prosecutors (and, alas, judges) have trampled on his basic constitutional protections and their own duties as officers of the court. Honest legal systems do not operate under the principle of “Show me the man, and I’ll find you the crime” a dictum popularized behind the Iron Curtain during the reign of terror by Stalin’s secret police. It should be anathema in a democracy, not the best explanation for actions by Letitia James, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, Atlanta prosecutor Fani Willis, or local New York judge Arthur Engoron. Nor should their actions be cheered by rabid partisans, much as they hate Trump. Yet that is exactly what they are saying on social media. They want vengeance.

Independent voters want something else. They want fairness. Many are not in love with Trump’s candidacy, but they still think he is being manhandled by prosecutors and judges. And they think that is fundamentally wrong. It will drive some of them to vote for him, or at least against his opponent.

Our Constitution is supposed to protect citizens against biased, politicized law enforcement. There are explicit constitutional protections against excessive fines, for instance. Those shouldn’t just be meaningless words on paper. Yet Judge Engoron, who oversaw the bench trial concerning Trump’s bank loans, ordered the former president to post a half-billion dollar bond simply to appeal the questionable legal decision. (On the final day to post it, a state appeals court cut the bond in half and eased a few restrictions the trial judge imposed on the Trump Organization’s business.)

Trump has said he will abide by the appellate decision. He has little choice. If he doesn’t post the bond, he loses even the right to appeal. Meanwhile, James blasts out another a taunting tweet each day, gleefully observing that Trump owes another $100,000 in interest. She loves it and says so brazenly.

James and Judge Engoron are attempting to break the former president financially before he can appeal a court decision. Whether Trump wins or loses on appeal, he should have the right to raise his legal arguments without overwhelming financial impediments. The judge could have easily accommodated that appeal, but he refused. He could have easily accepted a lower bond, such as the $100 million proffered by Trump, but he refused. Meanwhile, James was gleefully preparing to seize Trump’s properties and force a fire sale until the state appellate court lowered Trump’s bond and gave him 10 more days to comply.

These were shameful exercises of partisan power, done under the color of law. They may end up helping Trump politically, but that’s not the point here. The crucial point is that they undermine the unbiased, non-partisan rule of law, a foundational principle in any true democracy.

Voters can see the fundamental unfairness. So can investors, who are worried by what looks like the arbitrary loss of Trump’s property rights. When that happens in Manhattan, the capital of world finance, there will be consequences.

Each of these issues – massive illegal immigration, biased law enforcement, the erosion of property rights, and “Get Trump” lawfare – is important in its own right. Together, they are even more important. Taken together, they reinforce Americans’ sense of unease, social division, and betrayal by a justice system tilted against political enemies. They are frustrated by governments at all levels that seem arbitrary, inept, and unwilling to meet their most basic obligations.

If the polls are right, voters will make their frustration felt in November.

Charles Lipson is the Peter B. Ritzma Professor of Political Science Emeritus at the University of Chicago, where he founded the Program on International Politics, Economics, and Security. He can be reached at charles.lipson@gmail.com.

The city of Sacramento, California has passed a resolution declaring itself a “sanctuary city” for transgender individuals, who apparently don’t have sufficient ‘sanctuary’ in women’s lockers, bathrooms, or sports.

The resolution prohibits city employees fromm using “staff time” and “resources” to prevent individuals from getting transgender medical procedures, or cooperating “with jurisdictions seeking to enforce laws criminalizing gender-affirming care in other jurisdictions.”

The resolution was passed by unanimous vote after dozens of city residents voiced support for, and against, the measure, CBS News reports.

According to the resolution:

California has been a leader in protecting the rights of transgender individuals to access care, but many states across the nation are moving in the opposite direction.

In preparation of future legislation that may criminalize those providing or seeking gender-affirming care and given the Council’s stated values of equity and inclusion, it is important for the City of Sacramento to be proactive in reiterating our commitment to transgender rights and equal protections for transgender people by declaring ourselves a sanctuary city and a place of safety for transgender people.

During the debate stage of the meeting to consider the resolution, Vice Mayor Caity Maple said that she had grown up with someone who left home “at a young age” because their parents were not “affirming,” and therefore the measure was “very personal,” the Daily Caller reports.

Councilmember Mai Vang thanked supporters for coming out, saying that transgender and nonbinary youth should be “treated with respect and dignity,” and that “ensuring they are able to be their authentic self is so important.”

Legislation banning sex-change medical procedures on minors has been passed in 23 states, including Utah and Idaho – which are closest to California. On Tuesday, the ACLU sued the state of Ohio on behalf of two 12-year-old children over its ban.

Authored by Nick Giambruno via InternationalMan.com,

Given the characteristics of gold and Bitcoin, which is best suited for sending value through time and space?

Below, I’ll analyze the ten most decisive monetary attributes and see whether gold or Bitcoin has an advantage.

Monetary Attribute #1: Scarcity

The World Gold Council estimates there are 6.8 billion ounces of mined gold globally, and annual production averages around 118 million ounces.

That much is what is known. However, we don’t know how much gold will be discovered and mined in the future.

For example, how many mined ounces of gold will be available on June 1, 2031?

We can probably make a pretty accurate projection, but nobody can know.

What will the Bitcoin supply be on June 1, 2031?

It will be around 20,589,121 Bitcoins.

With Bitcoin, the current and future supply is finite and known to all.

There will never be more than 21 million Bitcoins, and there is nothing anyone can do to change that.

Today, the Bitcoin supply is about 19.6 million, meaning the vast majority—over 93%—of the total Bitcoin supply has already been created.

The remaining 1.4 million BTC will come onto the market at a preset, ever-decreasing rate until the last Bitcoin is created 116 years from now, in 2140.

In other words, Bitcoin’s supply will only grow about 7% in the next 116 years.

The supply of Bitcoin won’t grow much at all from here.

By 2030, over 98% of all Bitcoins will have already been created.

Bitcoin_apex, a German Bitcoin advocate, describes Bitcoin’s scarcity like this:

8 billion people, 21 million Bitcoin.

That is proportionally as if:

80,000 people had to share $210.

8,000 people spread out on a bus with 21 seats.

800 people would share 2.1kg of bread.

80 people sharing 0.21 liters of water.

8 people would have to live in an apartment with 0.021 square meters.

Here’s another way to think of it.

Owning 1 BTC is like owning 324 ounces of the global gold supply; each would give you ownership over about 0.00000476% of the overall supply.

Owning 1.236 BTC is like owning a 400-ounce Good Delivery gold bullion bar; each would give you ownership over about 0.0000059% of the overall supply.

Here’s the bottom line.

Gold is scarce, but only Bitcoin is absolutely scarce.

Verdict: Bitcoin Wins

Monetary Attribute #2: Hardness

In my view, hardness is the most important monetary attribute.

Hardness does not mean something that is necessarily tangible or physically hard, like metal. Instead, it means “hard to produce.” By contrast, “easy money” is easy to produce.

The best way to think of hardness is “resistance to debasement,” which helps make it a good store of value—an essential function of money.

All other monetary characteristics are meaningless if the money is easy for someone to produce.

What is desirable in a good money is something that someone else cannot make easily.

For example, imagine the price of copper going 5x or 10x.

You can be sure that would spur increased production, eventually expanding the copper supply. Of course, the same is true of any other commodity.

That’s why there is a famous saying in mining: “The cure for high prices is high prices.”

The dynamic of higher prices incentivizing more production and ultimately more supply, bringing prices down, exists with every physical commodity. However, gold is the most resistant to this process.

That supply response is why most commodity prices tend to revert around the cost of production over time.

This dynamic is even more profound with money.

When an asset obtains monetary properties, the natural reaction is for people to make more of it—a lot more of it.

This is known as the easy money trap.

Historically, gold was always the hardest asset, the one most resistant to the easy money trap… until Bitcoin.

Bitcoin is the first—and only—monetary asset with a supply entirely unaffected by increased demand.

That is an astonishing and game-changing characteristic.

That means the only way Bitcoin can respond to an increase in demand is for the price to go up. Unlike gold and every other commodity, increasing the supply in response to increased demand is not an option.

The stock-to-flow (S2F) ratio measures an asset’s hardness.

S2F Ratio = Stock / Flow

The “stock” part refers to the amount of something available, like current stockpiles. It’s the supply already mined. It’s available right away.

The “flow” part refers to the new supply added from production and other sources each year.

A high S2F ratio means that annual supply growth is small relative to the existing supply, which indicates a hard asset resistant to debasement.

A low S2F ratio indicates the opposite. This means that new annual production can easily influence the overall supply and prices, which is not desirable for something that functions as a store of value.

Before I move on, it’s important to clarify that hardness is not the same as scarcity. They are related concepts but not the same thing.

For example, platinum and palladium are scarcer than gold but not hard assets. Current production is high relative to existing stockpiles.

Unlike gold, stockpiles of platinum and palladium have not built up over thousands of years. It’s the primary reason why new supply can easily rock the market.

Because of their low S2F ratios, platinum (0.4x) and palladium (1.1x) are not suitable as money. Their low S2F ratios indicate they are primarily industrial metals, corresponding to how people use them today. Almost nobody uses platinum and palladium as money.

Gold has an S2F ratio of 60x. That means it would take about 60 years of the current production rate to equal the existing gold supply.

Today, Bitcoin’s S2F ratio is about 57x, slightly below gold’s.

According to its fixed protocol, we know precisely how Bitcoin’s supply will grow in the future.

A key feature is that the new supply gets cut in half every four years, which causes Bitcoin’s hardness to double every four years. This process is known as the “halving.”

The next time Bitcoin’s supply growth will be cut in half will be in April 2024.

But this coming halving will be very different…

That’s because Bitcoin’s hardness will be almost twice that of gold’s when that happens.

That’s how Bitcoin will soon become the hardest money the world has ever known. And it will keep getting harder as its S2F ratio approaches infinity.

For thousands of years, gold has always been mankind’s hardest money. That is all set to change in a few weeks, and most people have no idea.

Verdict: Bitcoin Wins

Monetary Attribute #3: Liquidity

Having a large global pool of buyers and sellers—liquidity—is critically important for any serious money.

With a market cap of around $14.6 trillion, gold has a large pool of global liquidity.

At around $1.3 trillion, Bitcoin has a much smaller pool of global liquidity.

However, it is growing quickly.

If the Bitcoin price goes up 10x—which it has done many times in its history, and I expect it will do again soon—Bitcoin’s pool of global liquidity will be within spitting distance of gold’s.

If Bitcoin’s market cap and pool of liquidity continue to grow faster than gold’s, it will erode gold’s advantage. But for now, gold wins.

Verdict: Gold Wins

Monetary Attribute #4: Portability

If you send $1 billion worth of physical gold from New York to Beijing, complicated and expensive logistics are required.

$1 billion of gold weighs about 14,300 kilograms (or about 31,500 pounds). Transporting that much gold would likely involve multiple cargo flights and then armored trucks moving it from the destination airport to the destination vault.

It would also require insurance, navigating regulations, paying import or export taxes, clearing customs, and thorough verification of the gold’s purity, among other things.

It would also take considerable time; It wouldn’t happen overnight.

Transporting smaller amounts of gold is also problematic. For example, going through airport security with gold coins and bars will likely generate unwanted attention.

These are some of the issues with gold’s portability.

Physical gold is vulnerable to seizure in part because of the problems with transporting it.

Bitcoin, on the other hand, is the most portable asset in the world.

It is a digital bearer asset that can achieve final international settlement in 10 minutes for pennies.

You can send $1 billion worth of Bitcoin from New York to Beijing for less than $10 in fees. It will arrive in around 10 minutes.

The transaction has no credit risk and no counterparty risk. You don’t need to get anyone’s permission or need to use—or trust—any third party whatsoever. And there’s nothing anybody can do to block, freeze, reverse, or censor the transaction.

The recipient can instantly verify the Bitcoin’s authenticity at no cost.

Going through airports and crossing borders with Bitcoin is also much more practical than other forms of wealth.

If you hold Bitcoin on your phone, laptop, or flash drive, it can be accessible to border agents if they search you and you reveal your password. However, those things are much less conspicuous than physical gold.

Further, many popular Bitcoin wallets use a 12-word phrase to recover your funds. If you can memorize the 12-word phrase, you can potentially store billions of dollars worth of value just in your head with nothing else.

When it comes to portability, Bitcoin isn’t just slightly better. It’s an upgrade orders of magnitude better than gold.

It’s an even more profound upgrade than when mankind moved from using horse carriages for travel to using Boeing 747 airliners. It’s more like going from horse carriages to futuristic teleportation machines that can instantly beam you from one location to another.

Verdict: Bitcoin Wins

Monetary Attribute #5: Verifiability

Do you really know that the gold you own is authentic?

It could look something like this on the inside.

Chances are the gold you own is indeed authentic… but you can never know for sure unless you test it yourself with specialized equipment. Otherwise, you’ll have to trust a third-party auditor and appraiser.

If you want 100% certainty, you’ll probably need to melt the gold down and recast it.

No matter how you do it, verifying gold’s authenticity is infrequent, slow, people-intensive, costly, and potentially unreliable. It also doesn’t scale.

With Bitcoin, counterfeiting is practically impossible. Simple mathematics can instantly verify a Bitcoin transaction’s authenticity at no cost.

If you doubt it, try to send some fake Bitcoin and see what happens.

I don’t see any reason to believe Bitcoin’s resistance to counterfeiting would be eroded.

Further, imagine if the average person could instantly audit and verify the entire global gold supply’s authenticity—without relying on any third party. That’s what anyone can do with Bitcoin.

In short, Bitcoin users have a level of certainty that has never previously existed for any other monetary asset.

Verdict: Bitcoin Wins

Monetary Attribute #6: Fungibility and Privacy

Anyone can go to a website with details of the public Bitcoin blockchain to analyze and view the entire transaction history.

The information on Bitcoin’s blockchain doesn’t explicitly show your name, address, and other personal information. However, suppose it became known that a particular Bitcoin address was associated with you. In that case, outsiders could track your balance and every transaction you make.

Particular Bitcoins could also become “tainted” through transactions that governments don’t like. For example, suppose you received a Bitcoin with a transaction history linking it to someone in North Korea, Iran, or another sanctioned entity. It might cause complications.

All of this raises a fundamental question.

How do you obtain privacy on Bitcoin’s public blockchain?

It’s a good question that confuses many people.

The answer involves hiding in crowds.

Obtaining privacy on Bitcoin has been likened to the scene in the movie V for Vendetta in which thousands of masked people marched in the street. They were all engaged in a public act, but their identities were concealed because they all wore the same mask, allowing them to hide in a crowd.

Privacy in Bitcoin works similarly.

Several excellent privacy tools are available to anyone right now on Bitcoin, and they are getting better every day.

For example, you can find a typical JoinMarket transaction, a special Bitcoin transaction optimized for privacy, at the link below.

Can you tell who the sender and receiver are?

https://mempool.space/tx/a56d23da7df68eb49d3665452bf7085c07a79be62f29f19e588240f02eb94c76

On the other hand, physical gold doesn’t retain a transaction history for anyone to view at any time. Further, you can always melt down a gold bar or coin and recast it to destroy any previous associations.

I expect developments in the next few years to significantly increase Bitcoin’s fungibility and privacy for all users.

In the meantime, gold has an advantage.

Verdict: Gold Wins

Monetary Attribute #7: Durability

Gold is indestructible. It doesn’t decay or corrode. That’s why most of the gold people produced even thousands of years ago is still around today.

With Bitcoin, all aspects are genuinely decentralized and robust.

Even if the US and Russia engaged in an all-out nuclear war, destroying most of the Northern Hemisphere, Bitcoin wouldn’t miss a beat in the Southern Hemisphere.

Barring an inescapable, global return to the Stone Age that lasts into eternity, Bitcoin is durable… but not as durable as physical gold.

Verdict: Gold Wins

Monetary Attribute #8: Divisibility

Physical gold is generally inconvenient and impractical to use for small transactions.

A one-gram bar—around the size of a pushpin—is about the smallest practical size. As of writing, one gram of gold is worth about $65. Transactions worth anything less than that will be problematic.

Each of the 21 million Bitcoins can be divided into 100,000,000 units called satoshis (or sats). Each sat is worth 0.00000001 of one Bitcoin.

As of writing, it takes about 1,500 sats to make a dollar, which means a penny is worth 15 sats, and each sat is worth 1/15 of a penny.

In short, Bitcoin’s extreme divisibility allows for transactions of any size—from fractions of a penny to billions.

Verdict: Bitcoin Wins

Monetary Attribute #9: Scalability

If gold or Bitcoin becomes the world’s dominant money, how can it be scaled to billions of people?

That’s a key question.

With gold, settling all transactions in physical payments—especially small ones—is not practical.

Trusted third parties, like mints, vaults, banks, transportation companies, and others, are necessary for gold to function as a practical medium of exchange at scale. These entities must follow all laws and regulations, or governments will quickly shut them down.

In short, trusted third parties are centralized vulnerabilities. Governments can capture and coerce them.

This is exactly how governments used the gold standard to bootstrap the fiat currency system into existence.

First, people used physical gold as money. Then, to scale, they necessarily turned to third parties, like banks, that stored gold and issued gold IOUs to facilitate trade. Governments captured those third parties and gradually removed the gold backing from the IOUs until they were nothing more than confetti. In short, that is how the fiat currency system was born.

Here’s the bottom line.

Gold’s biggest flaw as money is that for it to function at scale, it requires IOUs and third parties beholden to governments.

With Bitcoin, anyone can send and receive value—from fractions of a penny to billions—worldwide without relying on any third party and achieve final international settlement within minutes, 24/7/365.

However, the base layer of the Bitcoin network can only process about 576,000 transactions a day.

Every day, there are over 2,000,000,000 consumer transactions around the world. That means Bitcoin can only process about 0.029% of them. That’s why recording every Starbucks or McDonald’s transaction on the Bitcoin blockchain was never possible.

It was also never desirable.

If Bitcoin needed to record every consumer transaction on its blockchain—or even a fraction of them—it would require an industrial-scale operation with expensive data centers. The average computer would no longer be able to run the Bitcoin software.

In this scenario, Bitcoin might as well be another PayPal, Visa, or another centralized financial service where you need to ask for permission to do anything.

Remember, Bitcoin’s entire value proposition depends on it being neutral, censorship-resistant, accessible to everyone, and controlled by nobody.

To have these properties, it’s essential that the average person can run the Bitcoin software. That’s why Bitcoin has a hard limit on the transactions it can handle each day. It needs to be this way so that the average computer—and soon the average smartphone—can easily handle running Bitcoin. That makes Bitcoin genuinely decentralized and incorruptible, giving it unique monetary properties.

It’s crucial to emphasize that Bitcoin, without decentralization, would be worthless.

Scaling Bitcoin by compromising its decentralization would defeat its entire purpose.

Does that mean Bitcoin will never be able to scale and achieve widespread adoption?

Absolutely not.

Numerous scaling solutions for Bitcoin will inevitably emerge. However, the Lightning Network is the most dominant one.

The Lightning Network is an open, peer-to-peer network built on top of Bitcoin.

Anyone can use the Lightning Network, and nobody can be prevented from using it.

On the Lightning Network, people can perform an unlimited number of transactions without needing to add them to the Bitcoin blockchain. Delegating custody of funds to a third party is unnecessary—you can always remain in control.

The Lightning Network can eventually allow Bitcoin to scale up and handle every consumer transaction in the world.

Verdict: Bitcoin Wins

Monetary Attribute #10: Recognition

While gold is an established money, Bitcoin is an emerging one.

Gold has over 5,000 years of history as money. You can take gold to any country in the world, and most will instantly recognize it.

Bitcoin doesn’t have this established history and recognition. It’s only been around since 2009.

It took gold centuries to achieve monetization. Bitcoin has a good chance of undergoing monetization in a much shorter period—and it’s already well on its way.

In the meantime, gold has the advantage.

Verdict: Gold Wins

*  *  *

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