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Posted
10 hours ago, LCHorn said:

Scott Galloway says Bitcoin investment is a bit of a “fuck you” from Gen Z to the previous generations homeowners, 401-k investors, Vanguard account holders, etc.  He describes it as an act of rebellion against the wealth hoarders.
 

If that’s true, I’m not sure why they’d be any more likely to sell than any other market participant.

My point is that folks with less liquidity have less means to ride out volatility when it spirals downward.  I am just very uncertain that bitcoin truly insulates against it moving along with the markets downward if things go really bad?  I just do not think it is a as decoupled as some assert. I have watched it decouple to some degree for certain.  And the uncertainty of US fiscal policy in combination with the potential of the US government embracing of bitcoin.

it seems to me that the possibility of the US embracing bitcoin is as much responible for the rise as any other factor.  Or am I misreading this timeframe?  As I have not been closely following at all.

Posted

It's just funny, because you can't buy food, shelter, diapers, formula or medicine with BTC. We've beaten this dead horse over and over, and simply saying another protocol that is unused for commerce doesn't fix that either 

Posted

Great, and why is putting a 30+ minute transaction confirmation timer into a tablet a panacea for any of the previously covered problems with actually conducting commerce with this so-called currency?

And yeah no shit finance goons are figuring out ways to financialize the BTC and to do what, pray tell? Oh yeah, secure ACTUALLY USEFUL currency against it as loan collateral. None of it is actually useful - or to your rhetoric - freeing. It's just putting your financial life into the hands of profit extractors that definitionally do not have your best interests at heart

Posted
53 minutes ago, Luka said:

It will use the lightning network on top of bitcoin.

 

  Reveal hidden contents

May 27 2025, LAS VEGAS – Block, Inc. (NYSE: XYZ) today announced it will launch bitcoin payments on Square, marking a significant milestone in making bitcoin more accessible and usable. Bitcoin payments on Square will be showcased at Bitcoin 2025 in Las Vegas from May 27-29, where attendees can experience this new feature firsthand at the BTC Inc. merchandise store. By leveraging the Lightning Network, the Square Point of Sale app enables merchants to accept bitcoin payments directly through their Square hardware for near-instantaneous, low-cost transactions. The roll out is anticipated to begin in the second half of 2025 and is expected to reach all eligible Square sellers in 2026, subject to applicable regulatory approvals.

Square’s new, native Bitcoin For Businesses offering will build upon its Bitcoin Conversions feature launched in 2024, which allows qualified merchants to automatically convert a portion of their daily sales into bitcoin. Together, these bitcoin offerings will create a seamless experience for both merchants and customers, helping bitcoin to fulfill its original vision as a true peer-to-peer payment system, as outlined in the bitcoin whitepaper.

“Block has long been a champion of bitcoin, focused on making it more accessible and usable in our everyday lives," said Miles Suter, Bitcoin Product Lead at Block. “Rolling out a native bitcoin experience to millions of sellers brings us one step closer to that goal. When a coffee shop or retail store can accept bitcoin through Square, small businesses get paid faster, and get to keep more of their revenue. This is about economic empowerment for merchants who like to have options when it comes to accepting payments.”

For customers, paying with bitcoin is as simple as scanning a QR code at checkout. The Lightning Network enables near-instant settlement, while Square's integration handles all the complexity behind the scenes, including real-time exchange rate calculations and confirmation notifications.

“We believe in an open, decentralized, fair, fast, and low-cost money system for everyone, and that’s exactly what we want to bring to Square sellers,” added Suter.

Bitcoin payments on Square will be the latest addition to Block’s growing bitcoin ecosystem, which includes Cash App’s bitcoin buy, sell, and transfer capabilities; Bitkey, a self-custody bitcoin wallet; Proto, a suite of bitcoin mining products and services; and Spiral, which builds and funds open-source projects that advance the use of bitcoin as a tool for economic empowerment.

Block is also advancing global access to bitcoin through Bitkey, a self-custody bitcoin wallet launched in March 2024. Starting in May, Bitkey will roll out new privacy and security features to further strengthen user control and protection. Designed to eliminate the complexity of traditional seed phrases, Bitkey uses a built-in, multi-signature security and recovery system that offers users full control and simple recovery options. It's the only hardware wallet that provides inheritance as a recovery feature to all users, helping people ensure that if they are unable to move their funds their beneficiaries are able to initiate a recovery process. Bitkey was built to make self-custody intuitive, secure, and accessible for people around the world.

In addition, Block is building Proto, bitcoin mining products and services that aim to decentralize mining by increasing access to tools for builders, regardless of size or location.

 

hooray, they've created paypal with extra steps and somehow even less guardrails! It's specifically breaking the trustless model of BTC to require trust in a 3rd party and the sidechain you set up with them to enable lightning network payments. And it requires up-front funding of any escrow lightning side-chains you set up, which is a considerable barrier to onboarding.

Posted
15 minutes ago, Thetexashammer said:

We are going vertical with the debt now. Printer goes brrrrrrr.

image.png.5b1dc0ded1d9898d5fefb95b45284840.png

ground breaking stuff right here.

 

Is this supposed to be informative to ANYONE?

Posted
13 hours ago, Thetexashammer said:

We are going vertical with the debt now. Printer goes brrrrrrr.

image.png.5b1dc0ded1d9898d5fefb95b45284840.png

 

8 hours ago, StassneyHorn said:

They colored the graph red and blue for what party was President so that tells us everything we need to know.

Not really. It doesn’t look at what really matters. Debt as a % of GDP. And it doesn’t show who actually had control over a budget when it was set. This post from the mortgage thread does. The Republicans are not the wonderful stewards of money they claim to be, and Donald Trump was and is looking to be again a disaster. 
 

 

Fiscal Year

 

 

President Responsible

 

 

House Control

 

 

Senate Control

 

 

Deficit (USD)

 

 

% of GDP

2012 Barack Obama (D) Republican Democratic $1.327 trillion 8.5%
2013 Barack Obama (D) Republican Democratic $680 billion 4.1%
2014 Barack Obama (D) Republican Democratic $485 billion 2.8%
2015 Barack Obama (D) Republican Republican $442 billion 2.4%
2016 Barack Obama (D) Republican Republican $585 billion 3.1%
2017 Barack Obama (D)† Republican Republican $665 billion 3.4%
2018 Donald Trump (R) Republican Republican $779 billion 3.8%
2019 Donald Trump (R) Democratic Republican $984 billion 4.6%
2020 Donald Trump (R) Democratic Republican $3.132 trillion 14.9%
2021 Donald Trump (R)† Democratic Republican†† $2.775 trillion 12.4%
2022 Joe Biden (D) Democratic Democratic $1.375 trillion 5.5%
2023 Joe Biden (D) Republican Democratic $1.695 trillion 6.3%
2024 Joe Biden (D) Republican Democratic $1.833 trillion 6.4%
2025 Joe Biden (D) Republican Democratic $1.9 trillion 6.5%
 

Footnotes:

  •  Although Donald Trump was president during part of FY 2017 (starting January 20, 2017), the FY 2017 budget was mostly planned and signed into law during the Obama administration. Trump later signed supplemental appropriations.

  • †† Senate control in FY 2021 was effectively split 50-50 after the January 2021 runoffs in Georgia, with Vice President Kamala Harris (D)casting tie-breaking votes, giving Democrats functional control starting late January 2021 — but this occurred after the FY 2021 budget was largely set under Republican control.

I think this chart sums it up pretty well. Barack Obama did a pretty good job as President keeping spending under or around 3% of GSP after the 2009 financial crisis died down. Trump was an absolute disaster because he panicked during Covid and wildly overspent. Biden was ridiculously overspending, and here we sit with Trump in office and in control over both houses of Congress and the House passed a budget that will be the worst yet. Specifically for FY 2026, the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget estimates that the deficit could rise by nearly $600 billion, bringing the total deficit to approximately $2.3 trillion, or about 7.3% of GDP . Fucking disaster.

 
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Posted
5 hours ago, Dbeasy said:

 

Not really. It doesn’t look at what really matters. Debt as a % of GDP. And it doesn’t show who actually had control over a budget when it was set. This post from the mortgage thread does. The Republicans are not the wonderful stewards of money they claim to be, and Donald Trump was and is looking to be again a disaster. 
 

 

 

Fiscal Year

 

 

President Responsible

 

 

House Control

 

 

Senate Control

 

 

Deficit (USD)

 

 

% of GDP

2012 Barack Obama (D) Republican Democratic $1.327 trillion 8.5%
2013 Barack Obama (D) Republican Democratic $680 billion 4.1%
2014 Barack Obama (D) Republican Democratic $485 billion 2.8%
2015 Barack Obama (D) Republican Republican $442 billion 2.4%
2016 Barack Obama (D) Republican Republican $585 billion 3.1%
2017 Barack Obama (D)† Republican Republican $665 billion 3.4%
2018 Donald Trump (R) Republican Republican $779 billion 3.8%
2019 Donald Trump (R) Democratic Republican $984 billion 4.6%
2020 Donald Trump (R) Democratic Republican $3.132 trillion 14.9%
2021 Donald Trump (R)† Democratic Republican†† $2.775 trillion 12.4%
2022 Joe Biden (D) Democratic Democratic $1.375 trillion 5.5%
2023 Joe Biden (D) Republican Democratic $1.695 trillion 6.3%
2024 Joe Biden (D) Republican Democratic $1.833 trillion 6.4%
2025 Joe Biden (D) Republican Democratic $1.9 trillion 6.5%
 

Footnotes:

  •  Although Donald Trump was president during part of FY 2017 (starting January 20, 2017), the FY 2017 budget was mostly planned and signed into law during the Obama administration. Trump later signed supplemental appropriations.

  • †† Senate control in FY 2021 was effectively split 50-50 after the January 2021 runoffs in Georgia, with Vice President Kamala Harris (D)casting tie-breaking votes, giving Democrats functional control starting late January 2021 — but this occurred after the FY 2021 budget was largely set under Republican control.

I think this chart sums it up pretty well. Barack Obama did a pretty good job as President keeping spending under or around 3% of GSP after the 2009 financial crisis died down. Trump was an absolute disaster because he panicked during Covid and wildly overspent. Biden was ridiculously overspending, and here we sit with Trump in office and in control over both houses of Congress and the House passed a budget that will be the worst yet. Specifically for FY 2026, the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget estimates that the deficit could rise by nearly $600 billion, bringing the total deficit to approximately $2.3 trillion, or about 7.3% of GDP . Fucking disaster.

 
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I’m sorry but I know what red and blue mean in a chart.

  • Fuck You 1
Posted
1 hour ago, StassneyHorn said:

I’m sorry but I know what red and blue mean in a chart.

You also apparently know how to be an idiot. 

  • Haha 1
Posted
1 hour ago, Dbeasy said:

You also apparently know how to be an idiot. 

QFT.  These threads have become painful so I’m deploying the ignore function more and more to make them readable.

Posted
5 hours ago, StassneyHorn said:

I’ve been an active participant in this thread for 5 years and post mostly in CR. If you can’t pick up sarcasm in my posts please touch grass.

A bit is a bit Stassney.  It does not differentiate between sarcasm and truthiness…

Posted
On 6/6/2025 at 11:20 PM, Dbeasy said:

 

Not really. It doesn’t look at what really matters. Debt as a % of GDP. And it doesn’t show who actually had control over a budget when it was set. This post from the mortgage thread does. The Republicans are not the wonderful stewards of money they claim to be, and Donald Trump was and is looking to be again a disaster. 
 

 

 

Fiscal Year

 

 

President Responsible

 

 

House Control

 

 

Senate Control

 

 

Deficit (USD)

 

 

% of GDP

2012 Barack Obama (D) Republican Democratic $1.327 trillion 8.5%
2013 Barack Obama (D) Republican Democratic $680 billion 4.1%
2014 Barack Obama (D) Republican Democratic $485 billion 2.8%
2015 Barack Obama (D) Republican Republican $442 billion 2.4%
2016 Barack Obama (D) Republican Republican $585 billion 3.1%
2017 Barack Obama (D)† Republican Republican $665 billion 3.4%
2018 Donald Trump (R) Republican Republican $779 billion 3.8%
2019 Donald Trump (R) Democratic Republican $984 billion 4.6%
2020 Donald Trump (R) Democratic Republican $3.132 trillion 14.9%
2021 Donald Trump (R)† Democratic Republican†† $2.775 trillion 12.4%
2022 Joe Biden (D) Democratic Democratic $1.375 trillion 5.5%
2023 Joe Biden (D) Republican Democratic $1.695 trillion 6.3%
2024 Joe Biden (D) Republican Democratic $1.833 trillion 6.4%
2025 Joe Biden (D) Republican Democratic $1.9 trillion 6.5%
 

Footnotes:

  •  Although Donald Trump was president during part of FY 2017 (starting January 20, 2017), the FY 2017 budget was mostly planned and signed into law during the Obama administration. Trump later signed supplemental appropriations.

  • †† Senate control in FY 2021 was effectively split 50-50 after the January 2021 runoffs in Georgia, with Vice President Kamala Harris (D)casting tie-breaking votes, giving Democrats functional control starting late January 2021 — but this occurred after the FY 2021 budget was largely set under Republican control.

I think this chart sums it up pretty well. Barack Obama did a pretty good job as President keeping spending under or around 3% of GSP after the 2009 financial crisis died down. Trump was an absolute disaster because he panicked during Covid and wildly overspent. Biden was ridiculously overspending, and here we sit with Trump in office and in control over both houses of Congress and the House passed a budget that will be the worst yet. Specifically for FY 2026, the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget estimates that the deficit could rise by nearly $600 billion, bringing the total deficit to approximately $2.3 trillion, or about 7.3% of GDP . Fucking disaster.

 
  •  
  •  

Donald Trump Reaction GIF
 

got it 

  • Haha 2
Posted

Another REALLY excellent bit of journalism, going and talking directly to the businesses designing, building, importing, and selling items that are impacted by the tariff chaos. Who knew imma was in tech journalism??

 

Posted
2 hours ago, Captainant said:

Another REALLY excellent bit of journalism, going and talking directly to the businesses designing, building, importing, and selling items that are impacted by the tariff chaos. Who knew imma was in tech journalism??

 

Is that the guy from Lost 

Posted
1 hour ago, StassneyHorn said:

Careful, this board doesn’t allow celebration of good economic indicators. It’s all bad, bad, doomscrolling.

If the 10 year doesn't get below 4.00 which is such a stupid low hurdle, we riot. Works on the baseball board hopefully works here 

Posted
4 hours ago, Keyah said:

 

 

 

1 hour ago, StassneyHorn said:

Careful, this board doesn’t allow celebration of good economic indicators. It’s all bad, bad, doomscrolling.

There is a very decent chance the poster and the polling company are posting disinformation. Rather than blindly accept anything you read as fact as long as it agrees with your preconceived narrative, you would do better to research the sources of information. Not saying necessarily that this particular polling company is horseshit, but there are definitely some question marks. 

  • Hook 'Em 1
Posted (edited)

Excuse me but I will wait for Wulaw to tell me revisions are the only trusted source, from the same place as original declarations, before some guy named Madea says his numbers match.

Edited by StassneyHorn
Posted
2 hours ago, Dbeasy said:

 

There is a very decent chance the poster and the polling company are posting disinformation. Rather than blindly accept anything you read as fact as long as it agrees with your preconceived narrative, you would do better to research the sources of information. Not saying necessarily that this particular polling company is horseshit, but there are definitely some question marks. 

I selected that post because it omitted any CR reference. 
 

Basically any post promoting those stats was crediting it to certain things that would bother people here so I didn’t use them. 
 

Not surprisingly I couldn’t find a mention anywhere in media outlets from the other side. 
 

As far as it being “disinformation”, it’s from the Treasury and BLS. 
 

I think there’s some pretty obvious reasons why it’s happening but obvious CR. 

  • Hook 'Em 1
Posted (edited)

May Core inflation 2.4% YoY but only 0.1% MoM. No sign of tariff inflation at all.

May US PPI MoM 0.1%, also showing no signs of tariff inflation.

Initial jobless claims steady at 248k.

Nonfarm payrolls at 139k. Very weak for this size economy, and obviously there were downward revisions of prior reports as there always are. So the real number is probably a lot lower than 139k. 

May Empire State manufacturing index was -16. Completely terrible, but it's NY it doesn't really matter.

May Retail sales -0.9%. I talked with Martha Stewart, that's not a good thing.

The household employment survey showed a loss of 700k jobs, but this indicator isn't considered reliable in the short term. 

Housing starts down to 1.26 million from 1.36 million. Both terrible objectively, and well below consensus.

Initial jobless claims this week still steady at 245k, but there was a holiday so who knows really. Continuing jobless claims however surprised to the upside.

Leading economic indicators came in yesterday at -0.1%. From the Conference Board:

Quote

The Conference Board Leading Economic Index® (LEI) for the US ticked down by 0.1% in May 2025 to 99.0 (2016=100), after declining by 1.4% in April (revised downward from –1.0% originally reported). The LEI has fallen by 2.7% in the six-month period ending May 2025, a much faster rate of decline than the 1.4% contraction over the previous six months.

“The LEI for the US fell again in May, but only marginally,” said Justyna Zabinska-La Monica, Senior Manager, Business Cycle Indicators, at The Conference Board. “The recovery of stock prices after the April drop was the main positive contributor to the Index.  However, consumers’ pessimism, persistently weak new orders in manufacturing, a second consecutive month of rising initial claims for unemployment insurance, and a decline in housing permits weighed on the Index, leading to May’s overall decline. With the substantial negatively revised drop in April and the further downtick in May, the six-month growth rate of the Index has become more negative, triggering the recession signal. 

 

Basically, if you were hoping for inflation, you are likely to be disappointed. Tariff-flation isn't showing up. But good news if you hate Trump, this is because the economy is decelerating and appears to be headed towards (probably mild) recession, barring any animal spirits.

Edited by Thetexashammer
Posted
7 hours ago, Thetexashammer said:

May Core inflation 2.4% YoY but only 0.1% MoM. No sign of tariff inflation at all.

May US PPI MoM 0.1%, also showing no signs of tariff inflation.

Initial jobless claims steady at 248k.

Nonfarm payrolls at 139k. Very weak for this size economy, and obviously there were downward revisions of prior reports as there always are. So the real number is probably a lot lower than 139k. 

May Empire State manufacturing index was -16. Completely terrible, but it's NY it doesn't really matter.

May Retail sales -0.9%. I talked with Martha Stewart, that's not a good thing.

The household employment survey showed a loss of 700k jobs, but this indicator isn't considered reliable in the short term. 

Housing starts down to 1.26 million from 1.36 million. Both terrible objectively, and well below consensus.

Initial jobless claims this week still steady at 245k, but there was a holiday so who knows really. Continuing jobless claims however surprised to the upside.

Leading economic indicators came in yesterday at -0.1%. From the Conference Board:

 

Basically, if you were hoping for inflation, you are likely to be disappointed. Tariff-flation isn't showing up. But good news if you hate Trump, this is because the economy is decelerating and appears to be headed towards (probably mild) recession, barring any animal spirits.

As has been explained about 500 times on this site, inflation, and especially tariff inflation, and especially tariff inflation that is turned on and off like a light switch at the whims of an incompetent boob, will not show up in the economy for many many months and even year(s). This is basic economics 101 that apparently a significant chunk of this country doesn’t understand, just like they don’t understand that the most outrageous spending in history during Covid by the Trump administration started this entire inflation mess. And then Biden didn’t fix it, making it come down too slowly over time. 

Posted
On 6/19/2025 at 10:14 PM, Keyah said:

I selected that post because it omitted any CR reference. 
 

Basically any post promoting those stats was crediting it to certain things that would bother people here so I didn’t use them. 

Not surprisingly I couldn’t find a mention anywhere in media outlets from the other side. 
 

As far as it being “disinformation”, it’s from the Treasury and BLS. 
 

I think there’s some pretty obvious reasons why it’s happening but obvious CR. 

I dunno man.  if you spent one minute looking at the other posts by this X user (and the reposts it liked), anyone would see it is deeply partisan GOP propaganda.

Which does not mean that the select data quoted is incorrect.  It does mean that anyone seeing that select data from this particular ultra partisan source should look a little deeper.

True, while that posting history it is not a guarantee of intentional misrepresentation for info you shared, there is some justification that it’s not truly neutral information - but agenda/spin cherry-picked stuff.   As to the lack of worry (given data right now), it’s like the same lack of worry immediately after an iceberg struck some famous ship.   Just wait a bit. 

Anyone thinking current stats reflect the real economic situation that should start to tank by summer/year’s end is naive.   

  • Hook 'Em 1
Posted
1 hour ago, Thetexashammer said:

So you think that Jay Powell is wrong? Do you have some justification for disagreeing with mainstream economics?

No snark. About what specifically?   Inflation risks? He talks about many things. 

Posted (edited)
1 hour ago, Thetexashammer said:

So you think that Jay Powell is wrong? Do you have some justification for disagreeing with mainstream economics?

What an asinine comment. Powell and the Fed have stated multiple times now that the economy is slowing, due to the policies of this administration, but can’t yet cut interest rates because of the Trump tariff uncertainty. Seriously wtf? What is wrong with you?

Edit Add-On

Wow. I’m still stunned at the ridiculousness of Hammer’s reference to Powell. It shows he doesn’t understand anything.

Edited by Dbeasy
  • Drool 1
Posted (edited)
Quote

“Everyone that I know is forecasting a meaningful increase in inflation in coming months from tariffs because someone has to pay for the tariffs,”

{Powell said he expects to see tariff related inflation in the coming months. Not off several years in the future.

It's not like the quotes were hard to find, or he was vague in his word choice.

Edited by Thetexashammer
Posted
8 hours ago, Thetexashammer said:

If you were to purchase a box of hammers, it is unlikely they would cost substantially more than last year. At least that is what the data shows.

Tell me you don't do your own shopping without telling me. Don't believe your lying eyes, things are actually CHEAPER!!

Posted
18 minutes ago, Captainant said:

Also, lmfao if you think closing the Strait of Hormuz is going to help keep prices under control

Curiously enough, Iran closing that Strait will provide a convenient excuse for higher prices . . . that were probably going to go higher anyway.  Win win!

Posted

To be fair to Hammer, while he doesn't understand what he's talking about, there is a decent chance tariffs don't produce significant inflation over time. Why? Because it slows the economy and is a one time price adjustment. But the Fed just raised their inflation outlook for the year in their meeting. Why? It's complex, but basically it would be because we drop into a recession, thus the deficit gets even way way worse than it already is, and the excess money printing causes inflation.

If our government were really serious about stopping inflation, they would have a spending bill that is more aggressive in it's spending constraints. But we've all seen how little Trump and the majority of Republicans care about that. 

  • Like 1
Posted
21 hours ago, Captainant said:

Also, lmfao if you think closing the Strait of Hormuz is going to help keep prices under control

I know you’re hoping it happens, but it isn’t happening 

 

 

 

  • Fuck You 2

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