Slashdot is quickly becoming the climate activist soap box. Ok the hurricanes are stronger, maybe. You didn't compare it appropriately as the scale changed multiple times in the past 100 years.
This is a very important point, AC! In 2005 we had four Cat 3 hurricanes hit the US: Dennis, Katrina, Rita and Wilma. ALL of them had stronger winds than what was present in Harvey OR Irma this year. Somehow Harvey (130 MPH peak when it touched land) and Irma (same speed - 130 MPH when it hit land) are worse than 2005's Dennis (150), Katrina (175), Rita (180), and Wilma (185). Irma is weaker than Charley which hit Florida in 2004...
Nice cherry pick! Yes, two cat 4s a long time ago until now. And just 12 years ago - 2005 - we have FOUR cat 3s make US landfall... And all FOUR of those cat 3 hurricanes (Dennis, Katrina, Rita and Wilma) packed winds higher than Harvey, the cat 4 that flooded Texas. I'd say that 2005 was LOT worse, and much more unusual - we've been on a downswing since then, even this year is a major downswing from 2005...
In the case of China - fleeing with more than $50,000 IS tax evasion. You're not allowed to take that much currency out. And try to do that in the US as well without declaring currencies over $10,000 - that is a Federal offense that can result in jail time. Try quitting the US as a citizen - the IRS will claim a nice big chunk of your worldwide assets as an "exit tax". And if you don't pay, you end up in jail.
I think you're missing the fatal flaw with CC - and that flaw is by design. If I link ONE transaction to your wallet - I then have EVERY transaction in your wallet. I use video to link you to the purchase of a suit? Now I know everything you've ever done with your wallet. Ever. With cash, at most you have me linked to a purchase of a single suit. How is that kind of "a single connection exposes everything" a good means of being invisible?
Can you easily acquire tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars in jade and gold and diamonds with cash?
Yes. Visit any high-end jewelry shop in Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Beijing, Nanjing, or any larger city. I have a good friend who sells such jade, and she regularly sells 2-3 bracelets a month that are worth more than 1 million RMB. Typically cash sales, too...
Go to your neighborhood ICBC or BOC and watch. You'll see dozens of people an hour walking in and out with literally bags full of RMB. China is still very much a cash society - it is nearly impossible to get by in China without cash. Credit and fast pays are coming, but cash is still king.
Can you easily leave China with said jade without anyone knowing?
Yep, just slip it on your wrist and be done with it. Same with ruby and diamond rings from Thailand, gold from HK and Malaysia, and many other precious metals and diamonds. Customs officers won't blink at all when a lady is wearing a nice gold and diamond necklace - no thought at all that it may be worth a half million dollars.
But what if you're not that wealthy? What if the most you can squirrel away is $5,000 or $10,000 or $25,000 a year? Would REITs make sense? You would need to spend a lot of time investigating said companies etc. And, if you bought jade or gold you would spending $1000+ travelling to a foreign country, you would lose a fair bit of value when selling the jade to the US buyer. That takes a lot of time and a lot of due diligence. Is it really better than buying CC?
Yes, because how do you sell - liquidate - that Bitcoin to get cash? Bitcoin - like a CC - has ZERO privacy with the transactions. A given chain may be anonymous, but once you know who owns that chain - you know EVERYTHING they ever did with it. And how many exchanges in China will give you cash for your CC without the required reporting to Beijing over who and how much?
China has insane currency control laws on its books, and violation of them - even "structuring" to get around any limits - can and will result in significant jail time. Why would a sane, rational person even consider a purely electronic currency that records everything you've ever done with it, and must be reported to the central authority any time you wish to actually use it? Or even purchase it?
I don't know? I'm not arguing that it is. I'm actually very curious. One of the reasons I'm interested in CC is for just this reason: emergency ethics.
How does one survive the economic and political collapse of your country? Think 1930s Germany for Jewish people, or 1960s China, if you're tainted by the scourge of one or more of the 4 Olds, Or if you're living in Venezuela or Zimbabwe during the violence and massive inflation.
How is a CC a supply for emergency ethics? How portable is that CC? If you were a Jew in 1930s Germany, and had successfully masked your name, how would you like to have a single donation to the local synagogue with your CC suddenly get tracked back to you?
IF you want to have an emergency store of value, silver is probably your best bet. Incredibly liquid - you can exchange it for cash, on the spot, anywhere around the world without any records. You can buy it for cash the same way. It is low enough value per ounce that it won't break you to accumulate it or spend it, and it is still valuable enough that 10 pounds of the stuff is a couple of thousands of dollars in value.
So - rather than buy gold, or other assets, you recommend CC which is now banned from trading in significant amounts. Better to get something that is 100% traceable (yes, CC by design records ALL your transactions with it, as compared to gold or diamonds or other commodities) so that you can run the risk of prison or death. Hurray!
Currently, getting money OUT of China is quite problematic, and is limited to essentially investing in overseas companies, OR in funding a Hong Kong LLC (which can then fund overseas investments). Doing it with cash or equivalents - like cryptocurrencies now - are limited to $50,000 per YEAR. Going over that results in significant taxation penalties, and if you are over quite a bit (like 5X the limit) can result in jail time. Gold, jade, diamonds, silver, other precious metals and stones are exempt, however - and are a LOT harder to trace than CC (I know for a fact I can walk into a gold dealer in Los Angeles, hand him some gold coins, and walk out with cash - no ID needed).
No, it's going to be illegal to move more than $50,000 of CC outside China per year like it is with most other currencies. You have to invest in an actual physical/tangible asset or legal company to move any currencies larger than that amount. BTC and such are attractive because they can cross borders instantly, but with that gone - what's the attraction over gold, US dollars, or shares in a REIT?
You just made that up out of whole cloth. The Chinese people don't trust their fiat. They are trying anyway to convert their cash into anything that they can use to take currency out of the country.
You are 100% correct. As the spouse of a Chinese national, and a person who has spent a LOT of time (full time) living in China, you are 100% correct.
Wealthy Chinese want their money out of China, it's heavily manipulated and controlled, and China is finally cracking down on tax evasion (which is rampant in China).
And you are also completely wrong. Wealthy Chinese want their money out of China - but they also really do NOT want to end up in a Chinese prison or executed (yes, high amounts of tax fraud can receive a death penalty). So they tend to use legal vehicles only, including investments in actual registered overseas companies, legal gifts to family (why do you think the massive rise in "finding my overseas cousins" happened?), and setting up HK corporations that will invest funds overseas. Bitcoin and CC in general are now verboten as financial instruments in China, and no one will trust them anymore - because playing with them in any reasonable amount (10MM RMB or higher) can result in jailtime or worse...
Sucks if you're a CC speculator who's been relying upon the run-up in China/Asia to continue your gains - but that stool has just been kicked out from under you.
Not if iLife contacted Nintendo, and typically not for patents. Ignorance of the existence of a patent is no defense other than you can show you didn't do it willfully. And if iLife and Nintendo negotiated for 6 years and couldn't come to an agreement - then Nintendo could still be liable for every unit made over those 6 years. IANAPL, but I do have a few dozen issued patents, 20 more pending, and have been an expert witness 5 times...
So kind of like when I send $500 to my buddy via PayPal. Of course, he doesn't pay a dime, and neither do I, so... I guess paying 0.25% is better than paying zero?
And that's what is scary; bitcoin and other "block chain" currencies GUARANTEE traceability of every financial transaction you have ever made. Even worse than credit cards do (in that you can get credit cards with different names, addresses, and even anonymously). Bitcoin is an absolute dream for Governments and big business in that they can completely record and reconstruct everything you have ever bought or paid for. That kind of data isn't just a dream for the IRS, but for companies that thrive on your personal information.
It also means he must plan his trip to include a supercharger - meanwhile, I get to choose when and where I want to cruise PCH if I choose, because there are gas stations just about everywhere. Electrics are great - but they are by no means a panacea, and they have - and will continue to have - significant long-distance challenges because of battery chemistry. Hybrids are a much better option for any long-distance use (I'm hoping the 2018 Goldwing comes with the rumored hybrid setup, a small battery, electric motors and small 4 cylinder engine to charge/provide addtional HP as needed).
67 million millennials listen to radio each week, That's about 90% market penetration. Just because millennials will use other outlets to discover new music doesn't mean that existing outlets aren't used for consuming music. The Internet has become the new "local club/bar" where you'd go each week to hear new bands and genres; but consumption still is in radio.
SONOS, the largest consumer speaker company on the face of the Earth, sees a massive use of streaming FM stations over Internet - meaning if anything, FM radio's reach is increasing into the modern world. It's staying with broadcast but also streaming onto the Internet, so that a given station is no longer limited to a small geographic region but worldwide.
Not poor here! I work a few days a week, 2-3 times a month, in the Bay area. Live near Ventura. Have a nice 400 mile commute when I choose to do it, rather than fly - and I like that. A coworker does it occasionally in his Tesla, but he has to stop half-way up and recharge to ensure he will make it here...
The best selling electric car is the Nissan Leaf. You haven't looked very hard, because the rest of us have seen a company other than Tesla deliver a production vehicle that people really want to drive. The Leaf.
We already have delivery of groceries picked by others and then delivered to us, we have cars chosen by others and delivered to us, we have clothes - the same thing. Random strangers you can book to come and do your laundry, cook your food, clean your house. This seems like a logical extension of the "retail experience" - it comes to you. I don't want it, but I'm not surprised...
As my first engineering lead (a fatalistic Russian Jew who escaped over the Iron Curtain), used to say: you only learn from failure, never success. Success can be dumb luck but failure is all you.
Slashdot Mirror
Slashdot is quickly becoming the climate activist soap box. Ok the hurricanes are stronger, maybe. You didn't compare it appropriately as the scale changed multiple times in the past 100 years.
This is a very important point, AC! In 2005 we had four Cat 3 hurricanes hit the US: Dennis, Katrina, Rita and Wilma. ALL of them had stronger winds than what was present in Harvey OR Irma this year. Somehow Harvey (130 MPH peak when it touched land) and Irma (same speed - 130 MPH when it hit land) are worse than 2005's Dennis (150), Katrina (175), Rita (180), and Wilma (185). Irma is weaker than Charley which hit Florida in 2004...
Nice cherry pick! Yes, two cat 4s a long time ago until now. And just 12 years ago - 2005 - we have FOUR cat 3s make US landfall... And all FOUR of those cat 3 hurricanes (Dennis, Katrina, Rita and Wilma) packed winds higher than Harvey, the cat 4 that flooded Texas. I'd say that 2005 was LOT worse, and much more unusual - we've been on a downswing since then, even this year is a major downswing from 2005...
In the case of China - fleeing with more than $50,000 IS tax evasion. You're not allowed to take that much currency out. And try to do that in the US as well without declaring currencies over $10,000 - that is a Federal offense that can result in jail time. Try quitting the US as a citizen - the IRS will claim a nice big chunk of your worldwide assets as an "exit tax". And if you don't pay, you end up in jail.
Yes. But you're out of the country at that point.
Because countries NEVER cooperate with each other, or call for extradition, especially with tax matters...
I think you're missing the fatal flaw with CC - and that flaw is by design. If I link ONE transaction to your wallet - I then have EVERY transaction in your wallet. I use video to link you to the purchase of a suit? Now I know everything you've ever done with your wallet. Ever. With cash, at most you have me linked to a purchase of a single suit. How is that kind of "a single connection exposes everything" a good means of being invisible?
Can you easily acquire tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars in jade and gold and diamonds with cash?
Yes. Visit any high-end jewelry shop in Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Beijing, Nanjing, or any larger city. I have a good friend who sells such jade, and she regularly sells 2-3 bracelets a month that are worth more than 1 million RMB. Typically cash sales, too...
Go to your neighborhood ICBC or BOC and watch. You'll see dozens of people an hour walking in and out with literally bags full of RMB. China is still very much a cash society - it is nearly impossible to get by in China without cash. Credit and fast pays are coming, but cash is still king.
Can you easily leave China with said jade without anyone knowing?
Yep, just slip it on your wrist and be done with it. Same with ruby and diamond rings from Thailand, gold from HK and Malaysia, and many other precious metals and diamonds. Customs officers won't blink at all when a lady is wearing a nice gold and diamond necklace - no thought at all that it may be worth a half million dollars.
But what if you're not that wealthy? What if the most you can squirrel away is $5,000 or $10,000 or $25,000 a year? Would REITs make sense? You would need to spend a lot of time investigating said companies etc. And, if you bought jade or gold you would spending $1000+ travelling to a foreign country, you would lose a fair bit of value when selling the jade to the US buyer. That takes a lot of time and a lot of due diligence. Is it really better than buying CC?
Yes, because how do you sell - liquidate - that Bitcoin to get cash? Bitcoin - like a CC - has ZERO privacy with the transactions. A given chain may be anonymous, but once you know who owns that chain - you know EVERYTHING they ever did with it. And how many exchanges in China will give you cash for your CC without the required reporting to Beijing over who and how much?
China has insane currency control laws on its books, and violation of them - even "structuring" to get around any limits - can and will result in significant jail time. Why would a sane, rational person even consider a purely electronic currency that records everything you've ever done with it, and must be reported to the central authority any time you wish to actually use it? Or even purchase it?
I don't know? I'm not arguing that it is. I'm actually very curious. One of the reasons I'm interested in CC is for just this reason: emergency ethics. How does one survive the economic and political collapse of your country? Think 1930s Germany for Jewish people, or 1960s China, if you're tainted by the scourge of one or more of the 4 Olds, Or if you're living in Venezuela or Zimbabwe during the violence and massive inflation.
How is a CC a supply for emergency ethics? How portable is that CC? If you were a Jew in 1930s Germany, and had successfully masked your name, how would you like to have a single donation to the local synagogue with your CC suddenly get tracked back to you?
IF you want to have an emergency store of value, silver is probably your best bet. Incredibly liquid - you can exchange it for cash, on the spot, anywhere around the world without any records. You can buy it for cash the same way. It is low enough value per ounce that it won't break you to accumulate it or spend it, and it is still valuable enough that 10 pounds of the stuff is a couple of thousands of dollars in value.
So - rather than buy gold, or other assets, you recommend CC which is now banned from trading in significant amounts. Better to get something that is 100% traceable (yes, CC by design records ALL your transactions with it, as compared to gold or diamonds or other commodities) so that you can run the risk of prison or death. Hurray!
Currently, getting money OUT of China is quite problematic, and is limited to essentially investing in overseas companies, OR in funding a Hong Kong LLC (which can then fund overseas investments). Doing it with cash or equivalents - like cryptocurrencies now - are limited to $50,000 per YEAR. Going over that results in significant taxation penalties, and if you are over quite a bit (like 5X the limit) can result in jail time. Gold, jade, diamonds, silver, other precious metals and stones are exempt, however - and are a LOT harder to trace than CC (I know for a fact I can walk into a gold dealer in Los Angeles, hand him some gold coins, and walk out with cash - no ID needed).
No, it's going to be illegal to move more than $50,000 of CC outside China per year like it is with most other currencies. You have to invest in an actual physical/tangible asset or legal company to move any currencies larger than that amount. BTC and such are attractive because they can cross borders instantly, but with that gone - what's the attraction over gold, US dollars, or shares in a REIT?
You just made that up out of whole cloth. The Chinese people don't trust their fiat. They are trying anyway to convert their cash into anything that they can use to take currency out of the country.
You are 100% correct. As the spouse of a Chinese national, and a person who has spent a LOT of time (full time) living in China, you are 100% correct. Wealthy Chinese want their money out of China, it's heavily manipulated and controlled, and China is finally cracking down on tax evasion (which is rampant in China).
And you are also completely wrong. Wealthy Chinese want their money out of China - but they also really do NOT want to end up in a Chinese prison or executed (yes, high amounts of tax fraud can receive a death penalty). So they tend to use legal vehicles only, including investments in actual registered overseas companies, legal gifts to family (why do you think the massive rise in "finding my overseas cousins" happened?), and setting up HK corporations that will invest funds overseas. Bitcoin and CC in general are now verboten as financial instruments in China, and no one will trust them anymore - because playing with them in any reasonable amount (10MM RMB or higher) can result in jailtime or worse...
Sucks if you're a CC speculator who's been relying upon the run-up in China/Asia to continue your gains - but that stool has just been kicked out from under you.
Cell phones typically don't use the accelerometer to determine if a person is falling over or moving fast.
Not if iLife contacted Nintendo, and typically not for patents. Ignorance of the existence of a patent is no defense other than you can show you didn't do it willfully. And if iLife and Nintendo negotiated for 6 years and couldn't come to an agreement - then Nintendo could still be liable for every unit made over those 6 years. IANAPL, but I do have a few dozen issued patents, 20 more pending, and have been an expert witness 5 times...
So kind of like when I send $500 to my buddy via PayPal. Of course, he doesn't pay a dime, and neither do I, so... I guess paying 0.25% is better than paying zero?
So when it is time to convert that Bitcoin into actual cash - who does it, and why don't they take a cut (like banks or PayPal does today)?
Until that company starts producing a net profit, yes - it is a bit of a Ponzi scheme.
And that's what is scary; bitcoin and other "block chain" currencies GUARANTEE traceability of every financial transaction you have ever made. Even worse than credit cards do (in that you can get credit cards with different names, addresses, and even anonymously). Bitcoin is an absolute dream for Governments and big business in that they can completely record and reconstruct everything you have ever bought or paid for. That kind of data isn't just a dream for the IRS, but for companies that thrive on your personal information.
Of those three, only one is actually producing a profit by offering a tangible good and/or service.
It also means he must plan his trip to include a supercharger - meanwhile, I get to choose when and where I want to cruise PCH if I choose, because there are gas stations just about everywhere. Electrics are great - but they are by no means a panacea, and they have - and will continue to have - significant long-distance challenges because of battery chemistry. Hybrids are a much better option for any long-distance use (I'm hoping the 2018 Goldwing comes with the rumored hybrid setup, a small battery, electric motors and small 4 cylinder engine to charge/provide addtional HP as needed).
67 million millennials listen to radio each week, That's about 90% market penetration. Just because millennials will use other outlets to discover new music doesn't mean that existing outlets aren't used for consuming music. The Internet has become the new "local club/bar" where you'd go each week to hear new bands and genres; but consumption still is in radio.
SONOS, the largest consumer speaker company on the face of the Earth, sees a massive use of streaming FM stations over Internet - meaning if anything, FM radio's reach is increasing into the modern world. It's staying with broadcast but also streaming onto the Internet, so that a given station is no longer limited to a small geographic region but worldwide.
Now you did it, we're both heretics and we'll be burned at the stake by the Tesla torch-bearers!
Not poor here! I work a few days a week, 2-3 times a month, in the Bay area. Live near Ventura. Have a nice 400 mile commute when I choose to do it, rather than fly - and I like that. A coworker does it occasionally in his Tesla, but he has to stop half-way up and recharge to ensure he will make it here...
The best selling electric car is the Nissan Leaf. You haven't looked very hard, because the rest of us have seen a company other than Tesla deliver a production vehicle that people really want to drive. The Leaf.
We already have delivery of groceries picked by others and then delivered to us, we have cars chosen by others and delivered to us, we have clothes - the same thing. Random strangers you can book to come and do your laundry, cook your food, clean your house. This seems like a logical extension of the "retail experience" - it comes to you. I don't want it, but I'm not surprised...
...yet the longer you live, the slower the rate of increase in your age...
As my first engineering lead (a fatalistic Russian Jew who escaped over the Iron Curtain), used to say: you only learn from failure, never success. Success can be dumb luck but failure is all you.
It's because the collar and chain they get is shiny and new!