For the most part, as I have gotten older, I have developed the ability to just let go. I don’t drive with a vengeance. I may dislike something but I try to temper my disgust. I try to let the World just be. Obviously, this “letting go” of things has had mixed results.
As you well know, I think Joe Biden is the Worst president in my lifetime (if not longer). I think that people that believe in some sort of Socialist Democracy are A-Holes and I will not hesitate to tell them. I also have a stick up my butt about gender identity but that’s just me.
I think I have been able to listen to the other side of an argument and try to understand where they are coming from. I can see certain points and I think that is a big step in becoming a better person.
Sure I look at some opinions and quietly keep my opinion to myself. That goes for my conservative friends as well as my liberal friend( notice singular). I listen. I never used to, but now I do.
There are however, two things that I can not let go of just yet. Both of which I have mentioned before in previous columns but I will repeat them today as I try and take stock of my core ideas.
The first being cryptocurrencies. I have listened to every argument under the Sun and I have still not changed my mind on this. I don’t care if Bitcoin goes to 65,000 dollars a coin. I do not care. I will never buy into it and for anyone that has some argument in favor of the investment, bring it on.
Before I trash every argument the opposing side has, let me be clear, I do think the technology behind any crypto is actually game changing. Blockchain will change the world of financial transactions at some point in the future.
Other than that, cryptocurrencies are the largest Ponzi scheme in history. Bar none. The benefits of Bitcoin, Etherium and every other stupidly named cryptocurrency are for the founders and the first implementers. Everyone else is a stooge and it is like trading baseball cards. If no one wants your Mervin Hyde baseball card from 1965 than it is worthless. However, when Mervin becomes famous or infamous, his card’s value changes. When the fact that the promise of these “currencies” fails, their value will go to zero. Simple math.
The other simple thing that the conspirators in this space will never admit is that these tokens are vulnerable to being hijacked. Vulnerabilities that have zero protection from anyone. You buy 10 Bitcoins and invest 220,000 dollars let say and some genius hacker finds a way into your wallet or better yet, figures out how to destroy the algo that creates these non existant coins and you lose everything. Period. That’s it. The proponents say that is impossible. Stop, please. As far as technology is concerned and creating something that is on some “Ledger” in cyberspace, all bets are off. The genius that invented this cryptocurrency is not the smartest hacker in the world. There are probably hundreds of hackers working on programs to steal these currencies right now. What happens if just one person figures it out and the value goes to zero. Who are you going to look to for a resolution? The US government will not help you. The vast network of Coinbase users will all be the same boat as you. Coinbase will disappear. Any of these other criminals will disappear as well. You got Ponzi’ed. Too bad. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
The next problem of this cloud based environment is the fact that these tokens were billed as the new medium of exchange for the cyberworld. Yea, uh, how is that going? It’s not.
So you bought some Etherium or Bitcoin and include it in your portfolio under the high risk category. OK. I’ll buy that.However, you may want high risk where you can see disaster coming and won’t be sideswiped? Buy junk bonds. High risk, high return and you can, if you pay attention, see the end.
As I said, anyone want to debate me on this? Feel free to reach out. I do listen and I will try and see it from another point of view but I am pretty sure, my points (These are just a sampling, I have probably five more) will stand up to anyones arguments.
The next thing that I won’t let go of is, this ramming of The New Green Deal down our throats. It is a huge mistake and we are seeing that mistake on a daily basis.
The bottom line is that every Green Deal proponent wants every car to be electric. To ban all fossil fuel use. To turn around the greenhouse effects that man has caused since the beginning of the industrial revolution.
It is admirable and I do believe that climate is changing but, climates always change. Always. Human development has brought along this change for sure but I believe that we would be going through some sort of climatic change even if we were still in the Stone Age.
What to do about it is up for considerable debate and while we have a Democratic administration there will be no debate. It was pretty clear that this was not up for discussion the day President Biden set foot in the White House. He cancelled the Keystone Pipeline and signaled to producers of energy in this country that their days are numbered. From that day onward, the price of oil rose. From that day onward, inflation started to heat up. Coincidence? I think not.
For an administration to think that forcing Americans to “Go Green” would not impact their base is ludicrous. The rising price of gasoline in this country impacted the lower half of the economic spectrum a whole lot more than it did the upper middle class. A larger proportion of their disposable income was taken away and that is a good thing? Let’s see how many people from that economic strata are going to go out and buy or lease a Tesla. I am pretty sure that number is zero. The impact of these policies will fall squarely on the shoulders of the poor.
They can not afford to move to electric anything and even if they did, they are struggling to pay electric bills (which have increased every month since the administration took office). Now, add an electric dryer that is running for six to seven hours constantly to the mix. No. It isn’t going to work.
There are two things that are talked about less and less. One, is that you are moving oil production away from a country that has strict guidelines on drilling and pipelines to countries that could care less about the environment(Nigeria, Venezuela come to mind). Rising prices have also forced the Chinese to build dozens of coal fired plants which produce more air pollution than all the cars in California. The second thing is the real dirty secret of electric vehicles: the environmental damage that the mining for the key elements of the batteries causes. Why do we care, the core elements come from The Congo and other third world countries.
Not to mention what do we do with all the batteries that are no longer functioning? Talk about an environmental disaster. I worry that my two double AA batteries are going to cause ground pollution, what about the 600,000 batteries that will start running out of juice in the next two years. What about the cost of replacing those batteries if you still want to keep that car. What about the cars that will come off lease and people will not buy them because of that risk?
We have had a whole infrastructure based on used cars and it has worked for over 100 years. Now what?
I am not against electric vehicles at all, I just thing that we have an administration that is pushing out an agenda that has only partially been thought out.
Oh, by the way, where are we going to get all the power to power this new “Electric Age” Solar? Wind? Uh, think again.
Excellent, succinct. Definitely, what could they possibly be thinking column. Thank You!