frostbiker

News like these are the reason why I don't visit authoritarian or corrupt countries. Well, that and because I'm broke.

No, it’s because they are particularly dangerous to children.

If you peruse statistics of pedestrian deaths, you will find both children and seniors are the most frequent victims. Look it up.

Hey, hey! That's an unfair take. They also kill adults, seniors in particular.

It is called the "unmatched count technique" or "list experiment." It has a wider error range, so you need to poll more people, but you get honest answers.

I can lend money to others without them as middlemen

Private banks are highly regulated businesses to avoid fraud and maintain the trust and stability of the financial system. They also play a key role in the creation of money supply. Banks literally create money when they issue a loan, something no other business can do.

and at the same time they seem to suggest that having money in banks is not risk-free

Because it isn't 100% risk free: your bank can default and if your cash balance exceeds the amount that is insured by the government you can lose that excess.

The central bank cannot go bankrupt because it issues its own currency. You could experience the effects of inflation, but you would be protected from bankruptcy.

That's why authorities are concerned about allowing citizens to hold their savings in central bank accounts.

You mean mixing businesses and residential units in the same walkable neighborhood like we've done for thousands of years? That would never work! We must maximize commuting distances in order to reduce traffic and commuting times.

Bugs gone in two days represents the experience of the only two independent instances where people I know had to deal with bedbugs. Your experience may be different and I respect that.

In both instances the professionals wanted to spray insecticide as I described, too.

No offense

L-O-L

☮️✌️

You do you. A professional will ask you to move all your furniture, spray insecticide everywhere, come back two weeks later to repeat the same process again to kill the newly hatched eggs, and tell you that it is quite likely that the bugs will come back, so further rounds may be needed.

Diatomaceous earth pops up on every discussion because it works. Bugs gone in a couple of days, because D.E. sticks around to kill any larvae that hatch over the following weeks.

Diatomaceous earth kills the little bastards and it is non-hazardous to humans, as long as you don't snort the stuff.

Apparently for them is like walking on broken glass and they bleed do death, so to speak.

My sister had an infestation long ago and it was very effective. You can find the stuff online easily.

This is the key worry of governments with cryptocurrencies, and was the main selling point of them initially, before the whole crypto tech bro hype.

Yep. Arguably Bitcoin arose from the 2008 financial crisis and the following bailouts.

What I've never understood about it is that it seems so unlikely that it would ever replace a national currency, for two simple reasons. First, because taxes owed in a country can only be repaid in the national currency. Second, because government contracts will only ever pay in the national currency, from macroprojects, to maintenance contracts, to millions of civil servants. This creates both a ton of demand and a ton of supply for the national currency.

And that doesn't even take into account the role of the central bank and private banks in the money supply. Being highly regulated, there's zero chance that a private currency would ever be legally allowed to take hold there either.

Central bank digital currencies appear to have very little to do with crypto currencies like Bitcoin. Rather, they appear to be a mechanism to surgically induce economic stimulus when and where desired, like a more controlled version of the stimulus checks that we saw in many countries during COVID.

For example, they could directly credit your digital currency account with a certain amount of money that you are only allowed to spend on certain goods and services and for a limited amount of time. This would ensure that the money is spent and stimulates certain economic aress rather than being hoarded or invested.

Until people develop a workable alternative

The alternative will not appear out of thin air. More people need to have a sense of the long-reaching consequences of car-dependent urban planning and that's what propels them to vote for better planning in their cities.

Nothing is going to change without a shift in political leanings, and that's what this sort of advocacy is doing.

"Nothing happened! See, it is not such a big deal."

Somebody who doesn't understand that the effect is cumulative. Just like a heavy rainstorm one day may be manageable but if it happens every day you have a flood.

We need to do better.