Bipartisan Senate Proposal Raises Alarm Over El Salvador's Bitcoin Adoption (coindesk.com) 114
Senators Jim Risch, Bob Menendez, and Bill Cassidy's Accountability for Cryptocurrency in El Salvador (ACES) Act would require a State Department report on mitigating risks to the U.S. financial system from El Salvador's adoption of Bitcoin as legal tender. CoinDesk reports: "El Salvador recognizing Bitcoin (BTC) as official currency opens the door for money laundering cartels and undermines U.S. interests," said Bill Cassidy (R-La.). "If the United States wishes to combat money laundering and preserve the role of the dollar as a reserve currency of the world, we must tackle this issue head on."
If passed, the bill would require the State Department to report on a laundry list of subjects with respect to El Salvador and Bitcoin, including the flow of remittances from the U.S. to El Salvador, bilateral and international efforts to combat transnational illicit activities, and the potential for reduced use by El Salvador of the greenback.
The move quickly drew a partly comic, partly angry response from El Salvador President Nayib Bukele: "OK boomers ... You have zero jurisdiction on a sovereign and independent nation. We are not your colony, your back yard or your front yard. Stay out of our internal affairs. Don't try to control something you can't control."
The move quickly drew a partly comic, partly angry response from El Salvador President Nayib Bukele: "OK boomers ... You have zero jurisdiction on a sovereign and independent nation. We are not your colony, your back yard or your front yard. Stay out of our internal affairs. Don't try to control something you can't control."
sovereignty (Score:2)
Maybe I'm missing something, but is El Salvador objecting to something within the borders of El Salvador, because it sounds like El Salvador is objecting to the US being mad or doing something within the borders of the USA.
I still don't understand El Salvador's angle. They're just looking for untaxed, unregulated, and frictionless remittances, right? I don't see a narco angle, or just to take a stance, or just to poke the eye of the IMF.
Re: (Score:2)
The president has some bitcoin and he wants it to go up in value.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Dollars aren't free. Dollars have expensive exchange costs, expensive holding costs, expensive political and economic agreements with the US banking system and swift. Bitcoin has a transfer fee, bitcoin tends to go up vs. the dollar. Why not use it and let it compete with USD in their market?
Re:sovereignty (Score:5, Informative)
Except El Salvador is looking for a handout from the IMF because of economic problems. The US is a major contributor the IMF and money isn't handed out by the IMF freely for countries to do what they want with.
The only reason El Salvador cares is because of that one fact - the money comes with strings attached, and one of the big strings is well, bitcoin.
The IMF is, rightly or wrongly, a fund to provide aid for countries to prevent total economic collapse. Countries going to the IMF for aid generally do so because their economies are ailing. Richer countries provide this aid through the IMF, but it's not "free money" it's money with a bunch of strings attached and conditions, because when you're asking for billions of dollars, the people giving it to you want to make sure you'll do meaningful reforms to avoid going into the situation again.
El Salvador wants the money for free, the US and other countries who contribute to the IMF want to have a say in how that money is utilized.
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Right, so they want to get billions of dollars, which they will invest in a scam, and they object to this being called a scam and strenuously deny it's just so that their president can get rich.
The primary users of bitcoin are criminals. Everyone else involved should logically be dumping it. Except for "but.... I'm getting rich and I just need more people to buy it so that I get richer and then if more people buy it then it won't only be criminals... Please buy!" The whole idea of a decentralized curre
But the USD is El Salvador's legal currency (Score:2)
"sovereignty" ? The funny thing, which nobody seems to mention here, is that the USD is actually the real legal currency of El Salvador, since 2001:
The colón [...] was replaced by the United States dollar in 2001 [wikipedia.org]. And the reference: [26] [archive.org]
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"sovereignty" ? The funny thing, which nobody seems to mention here, is that the USD is actually the real legal currency of El Salvador, since 2001:
That doesn't give the US jurisdiction in El Salvador.
El Salvador is still a sovereign country.
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No one is disputing this. The bill is not asking to invade El Salvador or to have it change its laws by force. They're asking for a report from the state department, because this is an unstable country doing unstable things that will have consequences in the US. It may be a tiny country but there are a lot of expats living in the US, there are a lot of remittances going back to El Salvador, and there's a strong suspicion that all of this is tied into getting the Salvadorean government officials rich and
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Which part of that bill do you think is claiming US jurisdiction over El Salvador? Be specific, it's only 5 pages long after all: https://www.foreign.senate.gov... [senate.gov]
Naivety (Score:1)
Sir, you are talking to the US. Your country is only a label away from being obliterated economically, politically or physically. (If you don't do it yourself first with this whole bitcoin stunt.)
Re: Naivety (Score:3)
Meh. Was true maybe 10 or 20 years ago. Today the USA has more than their fair share of fail. In fact it's only a few labels that keep the USA from being a failed-state economy itself.
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Meh. Was true maybe 10 or 20 years ago. Today the USA has more than their fair share of fail. In fact it's only a few labels that keep the USA from being a failed-state economy itself.
Well, that and the huge global demand for dollars.
As long as you can't buy oil or gas with bitcoin the US is safe, economically. And, since bitcoin is actually fairly useless as a payment method, that's not going to happen.
Re: Naivety (Score:1)
Re: Naivety (Score:4, Informative)
well you can always pay with any other recognized currency like euros or gold - after all it's free world and free market, right?
Not really, no. You certainly can't easily pay for energy with piles of gold and Euros are like any other currency - you have to first convert them into whatever the seller wants, which is generally dollars, and then you pay with dollars.
Same with bitcoin: to buy gas or oil you need to convert the bitcoin into dollars and that makes it hard, due to the unpredictable large swings in value, to use it at a governmental level for planning a year or more ahead. If you set your budget and six months later your "currency" is worth half what it was you're going to have problems. That happens to real currencies too but not, and this was my point, to the dollar because the dollar has a huge artificial demand not because people want to buy things from Americans but because the dollar itself is seen as reliable.
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The Europeans are not currently paying the Russians for energy in dollars.
Even the Canadians take payment in Canadian dollars.
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Same with bitcoin: to buy gas or oil you need to convert the bitcoin into dollars and that makes it hard, due to the unpredictable large swings in value, to use it at a governmental level for planning a year or more ahead. If you set your budget and six months later your "currency" is worth half what it was you're going to have problems. That happens to real currencies too but not, and this was my point, to the dollar because the dollar has a huge artificial demand not because people want to buy things from Americans but because the dollar itself is seen as reliable.
Considering that between Trump and Biden, 80% of all US Dollars created, were created in the last two years; the matter of US currency reliable is wishful thinking. It's typical in Government that "When the Emperor has no clothes" they outlaw mirrors.
Re: Naivety (Score:2)
Well, that and the huge global demand for dollars.
As long as you can't buy oil or gas with bitcoin the US is safe, economically.
This pretty much hits the nail on the head as to why the US are scared shitless that someone could finally grasp the idea that the dollar being the de-facto world currency is nit necessarily a law of nature.
And, since bitcoin is actually fairly useless as a payment method, that's not going to happen.
The bitcoin is useless alright, no argument here. But I'm realizing the threat to the US is not bitcoin itself, but the very idea of another - any other - coin beyond dollars, raising gazes. This kind of implies
Re: (Score:2)
Exciting times *grabs popcorn* *munch* :-)
Your drive to eat seem to be fueled more by ignorance than anything else. I'll admit I have a mild curiosity as to whether or not you're overweight.
El Salvador's use of non-Dollars isn't remotely a concern to the hegemony of the US dollar, historically speaking.
The US Dollar hasn't been sole unit of exchange in hydrocarbon trades for a long time, now.
The fact that it persists at all, is merely because of the momentum it had. The US Dollar is basically a standard unit of exchange at this point.
But Cana
Re: (Score:2)
Without evaluating either your argument or getuid()'s argument, I just have to comment about the high degree of weird passive aggressive ad hominem in your post.
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I didn't feel it was passive aggressive one bit. I felt like I was pretty direct about it.
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Your insults did not seem to be as distinct from your reasoning as you seem to think. What I'm really curious about is why you felt the need to jump to insults? I suppose we don't need to argue about whether it was passive aggressive or not if you're just outright saying that you were being a jerk.
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Your insults did not seem to be as distinct from your reasoning as you seem to think.
Gonna call you out on that rather specious claim.
Go ahead and point out where my reasoning relied on insults.
What I'm really curious about is why you felt the need to jump to insults?
It's not relevant to the argument. But the reason? Because the guy is a fucking idiot. I felt he needed to know.
I suppose we don't need to argue about whether it was passive aggressive or not if you're just outright saying that you were being a jerk.
We still could, because it was clearly not passive aggressive. It was about as direct as one could get, but yes, I was being a jerk. A very actively aggressive one.
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Gonna call you out on that rather specious claim.
Go ahead and point out where my reasoning relied on insults.
It really just sort of pervaded your whole post. Like I said, the whole thing was just a bit weird. If you want to get specific about an ad hominem, you wrote:
I think rather than thinking *$&# through, you've just got a chip on your shoulder regarding the US.
There, you are implying that their argument is not thought through because of your personal, subjective evaluation of the person, rather than their argument. You do also give your own counter-argument, but to me it was mostly overshadowed by your odd attitude.
What I really can't fathom is why you are so proud of being a jerk? It's not an admirable qua
Re: (Score:2)
It really just sort of pervaded your whole post. Like I said, the whole thing was just a bit weird. If you want to get specific about an ad hominem, you wrote:
It was actually pretty well structure.
Initial paragraph indicating that his snarky comment was stupid, followed by 2 paragraphs of insult-less information, followed by a single paragraph summarizing my opinion of his idiocy there and above.
So I'm going to go ahead and assume when you said it wasn't as distinguishable as I thought, and that it pervaded the entire thing, you're just making shit up. I'm beginning to think that you and getuid() have something in common.
There, you are implying that their argument is not thought through because of your personal, subjective evaluation of the person, rather than their argument. You do also give your own counter-argument, but to me it was mostly overshadowed by your odd attitude.
I'm not implying, I'm outright accusing
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It was actually pretty well structure.
Initial paragraph indicating that his snarky comment was stupid, followed by 2 paragraphs of insult-less information, followed by a single paragraph summarizing my opinion of his idiocy there and above.
So I'm going to go ahead and assume when you said it wasn't as distinguishable as I thought, and that it pervaded the entire thing, you're just making shit up. I'm beginning to think that you and getuid() have something in common.
So it was just at the starting and ending paragraphs that took up 53% of your post (not counting quotes) by word count? Got it.
I'm not implying, I'm outright accusing. That is in the summary that follows the counter-argument.
And I'm not accusing their argument of being not thought out because of my personal, subjective evaluation, I'm accusing their argument of being not thought out due to the information given above, and my conclusion is the subjective evaluation. This is perfectly normal. You just have beef with the fact that I was insulting about it.
I'm certainly trying to comprehend why people like you feel a need to be that way. You could have just been having a reasonable discussion, or even a reasonable argument, but, for some reason, you feel the need to behave that way.
I'm in no way proud of being a jerk. I respond to idiots posting misinformation and stupid opinions as a jerk. I find it's the most effective way to disabuse them of their prejudices
Really, that's the most effective way to "disabuse them of their prejudices"? You actually think that? Have you considered taking a step back and examining
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So it was just at the starting and ending paragraphs that took up 53% of your post (not counting quotes) by word count? Got it.
You're changing your complaint from it being first, "Your insults did not seem to be as distinct from your reasoning as you seem to think.", to second, "It really just sort of pervaded your whole post.", to now you bitching about it by percentage of words used? Come on, dude.
You're running out of field to move those goalposts. Generally, when one makes a claim that ends up being, well, incorrect, they own it.
I'm certainly trying to comprehend why people like you feel a need to be that way. You could have just been having a reasonable discussion, or even a reasonable argument, but, for some reason, you feel the need to behave that way.
Because I've found that if someone is as truly fucking dim witted as the fucker above, no amount of
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You're changing your complaint from it being first, "Your insults did not seem to be as distinct from your reasoning as you seem to think.", to second, "It really just sort of pervaded your whole post.", to now you bitching about it by percentage of words used? Come on, dude.
Not really. Those are all pretty compatible and you're ignoring that I specifically pointed to the start of your last paragraph as specifically an ad hominem. Technically the rhetorical structure where you essentially say that you theorize that the other person's argument is so bad because of various personal reasons that you assume is sort of a combination of begging the question and ad hominem. The fact that that insults are in a majority of the post from start to finish was just support evidence for perv
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Technically the rhetorical structure where you essentially say that you theorize that the other person's argument is so bad because of various personal reasons that you assume is sort of a combination of begging the question and ad hominem.
No, no it's not. Not even a little bit.
You don't get to invent your own formal logic rules to prop up your argument. What's the fallacy for that one, hmm?
Stop it. You got caught trying to misconstrue something, and it bit you in the ass.
Your lack of good-faith is noted, now go fuck off and bloviate someone else to death.
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No, no it's not. Not even a little bit.
You don't get to invent your own formal logic rules to prop up your argument. What's the fallacy for that one, hmm?
That's the way it appears to me since that whole paragraph, taken together, implies that you believe that your opponent has a chip on their shoulder probably because the US did something to their country and therefore they're living in "weird fever-pitched delusions". It reads to me like you're saying that you doubt their reasoning because you think that their country being beaten/abused by the US has given them a grudge and driven them crazy. However many times I go over it, it looks like ad hominem. The b
Re: (Score:2)
That's the way it appears to me since that whole paragraph, taken together, implies that you believe that your opponent has a chip on their shoulder probably because the US did something to their country and therefore they're living in "weird fever-pitched delusions". It reads to me like you're saying that you doubt their reasoning because you think that their country being beaten/abused by the US has given them a grudge and driven them crazy. However many times I go over it, it looks like ad hominem. The begging the question aspect seems to be the circular reasoning inherent in the idea that the person's reasoning is suspect because they are crazy because of some event that you assumed happened because you think their reasoning is suspect.
My beliefs are not relevant to the argument.
You are trying to conflate them, or you're stupid.
Since I don't believe you're stupid, I believe you're trying to conflate them.
Conflating them is bad-faith, because you know they are separate. I have explained to you how they are separate, and you understood what I said.
I explained the structure of the post to you, even though you mischaracterized it multple times.
4 paragraphs.
1. opening salvo. insulting. very clearly not meant to contribute anything to the
Re: (Score:2)
My beliefs are not relevant to the argument.
You are trying to conflate them, or you're stupid.
This is an economics argument, so let's put this in economics terms. In economics, statements are either normative or positive. Positive statements are things that can be objectively measured and stated. Things like how much group A spent on commodity B last year, or what the mathematical relationship has been between employment levels and consumer spending over the past ten years or something. Then there are normative statements. Normative statements are value judgements and speculative. They are statement
Re: (Score:2)
In other words, your beliefs are relevant to the argument. In fact, your beliefs _are_ the argument. You were pitting your beliefs (factually-supported beliefs, but still beliefs) against getuid()'s beliefs. Tacking on an opinion that your opponent is not thinking things through because you think they have a grudge against the US is not some completely separate thing. It does not exist alone in a void. It's a value judgement against the other person's argument that seeks to devalue their argument and thereby raise your argument relative to theirs.
This is staggeringly incorrect. You have just disproved the devil's advocate. I'm impressed.
Those four paragraphs are inescapably linked together as part of the same post, and about the same subjects (getuid() and getuid()'s post)
Inescapably linked together as part of the same post. I suppose that can't be argued.
However, it's utterly meaningless unless you're trying to imply that the single work cannot contain deviations in intended message.
I have not said that the structure does not exist. I specifically addressed the structure. Also, I'll note that I did not use "permeated" but rather "pervaded". They're similar in some ways, and can be synonyms, but they're not actually the same word. Anyway, saying that it's pervaded is not clearly false without a very specific definition of "pervaded" in literature. It would be a question of what concentration and what degree of homogeneity define pervasiveness. If you can find a rigid, objective (and universal) definition of that which disagrees with my usage, then you'll have an argument. I personally think that I've satisfied the definition well enough to use that word.
Actually, you said:
Your insults did not seem to be as distinct from your reasoning as you seem to think.
And you said:
It really just sort of pervaded your whole post.
distinct, adj:
1. recognizably different in nature from something else of a similar type.
2. readily distinguishable by the senses.
pervaded, v:
1. to become diffused throughout every part of
So ya, you kind of did deny the structure. I find your claim otherwise laughable, along with your claim that pervaded was somehow a correct word to use.
That's the fallacy of false declaration of victory again. There's no debate moderator here. Although, I would be interested to see what they thought about it. That actually raises an interesting question for you. If you were in a debate class doing a mock debate and getuid() gave their argument, and then you gave yours, both exactly as written above and in their entirety, how do you think the professor would have graded you?
Oh come on, how could you make a claim that idiotic. Here, I can do that too.
That's the fallacy of falsely claiming a fallacy.
You're desperate to crawl your way on top of an argument, and it's a confusing mix of sad and amusing.
Re: (Score:2)
This is staggeringly incorrect. You have just disproved the devil's advocate. I'm impressed.
We'll just have to disagree. You seem to be conflating your beliefs with absolute truth.
Inescapably linked together as part of the same post. I suppose that can't be argued.
However, it's utterly meaningless unless you're trying to imply that the single work cannot contain deviations in intended message.
I'm not saying that a single work cannot contain deviations in intended message (although it seems like you perhaps are with all that nitpicking on the definition of "to pervade" and claiming I was goalpost-shifting, etc) but I am saying that a single work can be taken as a whole.
Actually, you said:
Your insults did not seem to be as distinct from your reasoning as you seem to think.
And you said:
It really just sort of pervaded your whole post.
distinct, adj:
1. recognizably different in nature from something else of a similar type.
2. readily distinguishable by the senses.
pervaded, v:
1. to become diffused throughout every part of
So ya, you kind of did deny the structure. I find your claim otherwise laughable, along with your claim that pervaded was somehow a correct word to use.
Grasping at dictionary definitions for word choices used in the third and fifth posts in the thread seems to be stretching credibility just a b
Re: (Score:2)
We'll just have to disagree. You seem to be conflating your beliefs with absolute truth.
And you seem to be conflating an argument with beliefs, or perhaps turning the discussion to some pointless metaphysical musing.
Grasping at dictionary definitions for word choices used in the third and fifth posts in the thread seems to be stretching credibility just a bit.
Now you're being a fucking idiot.
Your definition matched mine, and you misused it.
You are pathetically trying to remedy that mistake instead of just owning it.
You do somewhat admit that you could have chosen another word. Yes, you could have. But you chose to kick around this dead horse for a while.
Your 1930s example is laughable. In no way does the usage in that context imply
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And you seem to be conflating an argument with beliefs, or perhaps turning the discussion to some pointless metaphysical musing.
Belief does not exclusively mean religious or spiritual belief. It can simply mean opinion, which is exactly what it means here. If it makes you happy, substitute "opinion" for "belief" in that sentence. It's a little odd though that you suddenly object to the use of the term in that context since you're the one who originally wrote: "Yes, that's my subjective opinion. Would you like to hear my evidence for believing it?" So, if you clearly didn't think that belief had to mean something metaphysical at that
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And what about Afghanistan, just last year? First it was wrecked physically, and today it's being crushed economically and morally.
The US have the strongest economy in the world and I don't see it changing in my lifetime; yes, at the moment there's a problem with infl
Re: Naivety (Score:4, Insightful)
In fact it's only a few labels that keep the USA from being a failed-state economy itself.
Yes, I have one of those labels for you.
$19,485,394,000,000
Come the fuck on.
I fucking hate "defending the US", but give me a fucking break. We're a quarter the Earth's economic output, and 4.2% of its population.
90% of the world wishes it could fail as bad as the US.
Re: Naivety (Score:2)
1.7 mio people are subscribed to r/antiwork - that's up by a factor of 10x since 12 months ago.
Most of them are Americans.
That's 0.5% of your entire population, and we're talking only the subscribers here, not all participants.
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What's your point?
You're attempting to extrapolate a shakeup in the labor industry caused mostly by how prosperous we've been, to the failure of a state?
Regardless of whether 0.5-1%, hell, 5% of our workers have quit and decided to live off their sizeable nest eggs for a while, our GDP is a fact. It's a value that doesn't care what your projections are, and the fact is, somehow, the fucking thing is still growing.
Who knows how many workers we can afford to have out of work, but I suspect the number
Re: Naivety (Score:2)
You're attempting to extrapolate a shakeup in the labor industry caused mostly by how prosperous we've been, to the failure of a state?
Yes.
It's not that 0.5% or 5% are quitting. It's that so many are left behind that 0.5% feel compelled to join a channel call outright "antiwork".
There's no such thing as "the labor industry". Labor is the industry - all of it. Your industry is only as healthy as the buying power, and you've made it essentially impossible for way, waaaay north of 50% of your population near everyone to go to work, buy a house, have kids and raise them. It's always sucked on that front, but the past two years have made it eve
Re: (Score:2)
It's not that 0.5% or 5% are quitting. It's that so many are left behind that 0.5% feel compelled to join a channel call outright "antiwork".
There's no such thing as "the labor industry". Labor is the industry - all of it.
Eyeroll. Sure. I meant labor market.
Your industry is only as healthy as the buying power
Which is really, really fucking good. Better than the vast majority of the first world, in fact.
and you've made it essentially impossible for way, waaaay north of 50% of your population near everyone to go to work, buy a house, have kids and raise them. It's always sucked on that front, but the past two years have made it even difficult for someone like me to so this (I was offered a 250k CEO position in the northwest 3-ish years ago; I researched houses I'd jave liked to buy, schools, kindergardens back then, and did it again lately. Big difference.)
This is simply untrue. Factually and completely untrue.
First, a majority of Americans own homes.
Second, even if they didn't- that doesn't make the point you're trying to pretend that it makes.
I'm currently paying for a house in the PNW. I don't make 250k. About 2/3rd that. Ya, they're expensive. I get that. But that's because we make a lot of money here. Left over, after al
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He knows exactly who he's talking to, which is why he said what he said. He's daring the United States to do something about it, and he's intent on making it as public as possible.
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If you want a replay of the Cuban Missile Crisis, now's a great time to get combative with a Central American country.
Money laundering (Score:3, Funny)
Re: Money laundering (Score:2)
Re: Money laundering (Score:2)
Funny how US is still stuck with swift and is not using IBAN like the rest of the world
Re: (Score:2)
Also, canâ(TM)t people launder money with Bitcoin already?
The idea is that since Bitcoin has both dollars and bitcoin as its official currencies, that people will be able to launder money from one to the other easily without any record.
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It's not that easy to do. Sure there are mixers, but at least one of the mixers is owned by American three-letter agencies already, with others possibly being flipped by now (or soon).
XMR is great for money laundering as long as you don't need an offramp and you're careful about your onramp.
Saying the silent part out loud (Score:1, Insightful)
So what, we will be sending the CIA to replace yet another Central/South American government for committing the grand crime of undermining US interests? They are a sovereign country...the US can fuck itself with a rusty spoon.
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the US can fuck itself with a rusty spoon.
It can. And then it can wipe out a quarter of your population replacing your regime for a reason that may, or may not be, legitimate.
I get the "Fuck the US!" sentiment, but let's not mince words. The US can take a lot of rusty spoons in the ass. Can you?
Money laundering (Score:2)
Bitcoin is the worst currency for money laundering.
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Fraud != Money Laundering (Score:2)
Fraud is getting my granny to transfer her life savings to a 'safe account' because the nice man who phoned from her bank told her to do so.
Money laundering is getting Granny's money into the legitimate financial system without any chance of it being traced back to Granny or the criminal who did the fraud.
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Now, there's such a thing as washing or spinning crypto, which usually involves swapping it to a chain like Ethereum, and moving it through a protocol like Tornado Cash. That's a bit advanced or most of the dummies on slashdot though so I won't go into it.
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For most of the world, yes. But Bitcoin is legal tender in El Salvador, alongside the US dollar, meaning both can very easily converted back and forth to each other.
Sounds like some Senators own stock... (Score:3)
Re: Sounds like some Senators own stock... (Score:3)
Have to maintain the ability to manipulate money supply and shut down crowd funding and credit card clearance when they want to.
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"[unbreakable cryptography] is the best thing that's ever happened to organized crime".
Ok, boomer.
Competition. (Score:2)
Afraid of it, the US is.
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tl;dr (Score:3, Insightful)
Foreign aid (Score:1)
including the flow of remittances from the U.S. to El Salvador
It's always fun when foreign leaders cry 'sovereignty' whenever they draw criticism in situations like these. If El Salvador wants to hop on the Tulip Train that's their business, but the US - and likely any number of other nations not run by political gimmickry - will not be obligated in any way to cooperate with or fund the effort.
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If you're suggesting that the United States finally block the constant flow of small-scale remittances to Mexico and various Central American countries from . . . undocumented immigrants in the United States, then great! That's been a major blow to the United States' sovereignty for decades. Nobody's done anything about it.
If the United States singles out El Salvador alone, then it's a missed opportunity.
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It is neither fear mongering nor racism.
Part of asserting ones sovereignty is controlling precisely who does or does not enter your country. Or deporting people that do not follow your border rules. It doesn't matter who they are, if they are good people, or why they came. You break the rules, you leave.
They aren't supposed to live here for years and send money back home.
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Part of asserting ones sovereignty is controlling precisely who does or does not enter your country.
Agreed.
Or deporting people that do not follow your border rules.
Agreed.
It doesn't matter who they are, if they are good people, or why they came. You break the rules, you leave.
Still in agreement.
They aren't supposed to live here for years and send money back home.
OK, so your beef specifically is with illegal entrants sending their money back? I guess that does actually fit with what you said on second glance.
I read it as you saying it's an affront to our sovereignty for us to allow any money to be send abroad, by foreigners, regardless of status.
Sounds like that's a my bad
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It is the right of a free people to set the severity of a crime, and it's punishment.
It's legitimate to argue, I think, that if the people at large consider illegal immigration to be a minor offense, than it can't really be considered an affront to sovereignty, because (in a Republic, at least) they are the sovereignty.
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The laws on the books, when executed to the letter, do not tolerate such violations of our borders.
I know of a large group of German contractors working for a nearby automotive plant for a company called Dirk's Automotive. Dirk's was in competition for a contract with Formel D. Formel D discovered that some of the worker visas granted to Dirk's employees were the wrong type of visa, so they notified ICE and ICE promptly deported every contractor Dirk's had on staff.
All of them. It took less than a week t
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The laws on the books, when executed to the letter, do not tolerate such violations of our borders.
This is a silly benchmark.
Prosecutors are given wide leniency on what to prosecute, on purpose. It's part of the western legal system.
We had a President that selectively refused to enforce laws and then pretended it was a federal program to help "Dreamers", but that was at best an unConstitutional power grab.
OK, I had a feeling we were going to go this way.
More people were deported under that President than both his precursor, and his successor.
If we want to talk about the last President, he deported about 16% as many people as his predecessor, the President you're criticizing.
Furthermore, election of the President is also the will of the people, and the President is the c
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Yes, wasn't it obvious? One of the major reason why undocumented immigrants (read: illegals) come to the United States is to earn cash here and send it back home. Then they (maybe) leave years later, with or without the offspring they produced while they were here. Offspring who are rightfully or wrongfully granted automatic citizenship.
One of the ways you can halt border crossings is to make it unprofitable and difficult to live here in violation of the law. And one of the ways to do that is to restrict
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Mmmhmm.
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America, IMF police! (Score:2)
Global economies are global (Score:2)
Also, nice misdirection with the ok boomer comment. Way to derail serious conversation about the dangers is cryptocurrency in the broader financial markets. Clever.
El Salvador threatens the US? (Score:3)
How can the US feel threatened by the actions of a small, nearly bankrupt country? Worried about money laundering? As if that wouldn't have been possible with whatever currency some other country chooses to use - if anything, having the transactions visible on the blockchain is probably better than having them n El Salvadoran banks' ledgers.
Sounds more like underinformed Congresscritters wanting to act like they're doing something. Anything other than addressing the actual, hard problems facing the US...
What part of "sovereign" do you not understand? (Score:3)
Geez, do these Senators not understand the concept of "mind your own fucking business"? El Salvador's internal monetary policies are their business, not the business of the U.S. federal government. In case Senators Risch, Menendez, and Cassidy have forgotten, U.S. authority ends at the border.
Wow, honesty! (Score:2)
"and preserve the role of the dollar as a reserve currency of the world"
Well that's uncharacteristically honest of us to expose our actual motives in a situation like this. It makes me wonder if there are deeper and even more nefarious forces in play here that we would make such a stark admission. Narco trafficking is a factor here for sure.
The situation is more complex than the El Salvadorian President would like everyone to believe because obviously they receive aid from us (who doesn't, after all).
http [state.gov]
Hey US government (Score:2)
Re:They fear (Score:5, Funny)
said every BTC owner who hasn't had their wallet stolen yet.
Re:They fear (Score:5, Interesting)
Even though I'm not a fan of cryptocurrencies, I do worry about the fact that a lot of people don't really understand cryptocurrency, and its pros/cons... go in way over their heads, and then lose their shirt when they get their wallet drained.
Two pros/cons: You control the wallet (i.e. private key), and once coins are spent, they are permanently spent (well, with the exception of multi-sig.) The good point of this is that nobody can freeze your assets, and you are not beholden to an exchange, unless you want to use a custodial app. The bad point is that you are responsible for your own security, and the fraudsters are everywhere. We have gone for decades where if someone had their bank account drained, they can fill out a few online forms, and their money is refunded to them. With cryptocurrencies, once the private key is lost or compromised, the assets held by it are gone, and there are no refunds, period.
People are also used to convenience over security. They don't want to worry about tapping an eight digit PIN via two buttons into a device... they just want to push a button, confirm the charge, and go about their life. This works OK with the current financial system that has insurance built in to cover fraud. However, choosing convenience over security when it comes to crypto is going to mean finding an empty wallet.
If I were to go gamble (not invest... gamble) with cryptocurrencies, I'd probably buy a Ledger Nano X, or a Trezor (once they are back in stock) hardware wallet. For the BIP-39 mnemonic codes, I'd see about a metal stamp kit, hammer, and metal plates. That way, one at least as a decently secure, offline wallet to start out with.
Re:They fear (Score:5, Funny)
If I were to go gamble (not invest... gamble) with cryptocurrencies, I'd probably buy a Ledger Nano X, or a Trezor (once they are back in stock) hardware wallet. For the BIP-39 mnemonic codes, I'd see about a metal stamp kit, hammer, and metal plates. That way, one at least as a decently secure, offline wallet to start out with.
Sounds like a plan. Next thing, i'd rent a physical location to store them, and security to guard the place. I would call it "bank" too, for "Bitcoin Autonomous Numismatic Keep", which i think is catchy.
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Hardware wallets have a super cool factor to them. I love the nerd cred of them. That said, I trust a physical piece of paper with the key written on it much more than a hardware wallet. It is far less secure, but it has a much smaller number of possible failure modes.
Oh, you innocent Bitcoin Classic child... (Score:3, Informative)
Two pros/cons: You control the wallet (i.e. private key), and once coins are spent, they are permanently spent
...
The good point of this is that nobody can freeze your assets, and you are not beholden to an exchange
...
People are also used to convenience over security.
You should look up into the DAO Bailout [wikipedia.org] which resulted in a hard fork of Ethereum in order to pay back the millionaires who lost some $50 million which got stolen when the brilliant minds coding all that crap decided to implement "the DAO" - despite knowing that its security is full of holes.
See how easy it is to un-spend those "permanently spent" coins, if you're a millionaire?
You control neither jack nor shit.
People running the blockchain control everything, and they bow down to those with money, who own
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And that's why Bitcoiners tend to refer to Etherium as a shitcoin - it's not nearly as decentralized as it seems, and its developers are reckless.
To pull off a hard fork you have to convince the majority of both the node owners and the miners. Bitcoin's node is a lot less resource intensive than Etherium's (because Etherium's a global VM), so there's many more of them, so that many more that don't care about your lost money problem. Bitcoin's mining is more resource-intensive, conversely, but the protocol's
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You're stupid and dishonest, with an overinflated ego and a shrunken and shrivelled sense of ethics and morality.
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Gotta say though, that's the best political tweet I've ever read, instant classic.
If the US was really worried about money laundering they would be all over the UK, which facilitates it on a massive scale through London. Vast amounts of Russian money go through there, with some of it finding its way into the coffers of the ruling Tory Party.
I think Bukele is probably right, it's less about money laundering and more about control. The US uses the USD to exert a lot of "soft power", and gets very upset when e
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Yup. This is more about the US banking cartels realising that, unless they can put a stop to this now, the dollars status as a world reserve currency is under direct threat. So they've asked their congress critters to start making a noise about it.
Anyone who's been paying attention to recent history should look into the gold dinar standard that was proposed by Libya, Iraq etc. Look how that turned out.
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If the US was really worried about money laundering they would be all over the UK
Quod licet Iovi, non licet bovi.
Bukele is a Saddam Hussein level moron.
Might end up with some aircraft carriers up his ass if he keeps that shtick up into some future Republican administration.
Next one will be dying to have some local white trash and brown people dying in a war on some foreign brown people somewhere hot.
And last I checked, Salvadoreans kinda fail the Family Guy skin tone chart.
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Keep crying crybaby.
Re:They fear (Score:4)
Money laundering for drugs is the big concern. Is that going through London? Also the UK has a functional government that can partner to try to prevent these crimes, El Salvador government potentially are the ones directly committing or assisting in the crimes.
The issues are not soft power or small countries not bowing deeply enough. The issues are that bitcoin is highly unstable and unusable as a currency (to be instantly denied by those bitcoin holders who want us to buy also so that their investments go up) which can lead to a destabilized economy; and the issue of drug trafficking and money laundering. This isn't Nicaragua levels of direct involvement in drugs, so there's not a likely chance of helicopters swooping in, but it is of high concern to have a country engaged in such dubious practices when we have a high amount of remittances going to that country and also a high concern about trafficking of people and drugs across the border. A failed state is in no one's best interests.
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said every BTC owner who hasn't had their wallet stolen yet.
I'm anti-crypto myself, but I still find this ACES act chilling. What gives the US authority over monetary policy in El Salvador? Is the IRS going to invade it?
Re: Tulips or reserve currency? (Score:5, Insightful)
Despite myself being very pro America and being very patriotic (my posts speak for themselves) it is inflicting this problem on to itself by enforcing its morals against people's personal vices by effectively controlling how money can change hands internationally.
It's one thing to enact economic sanctions against rogue states, but it's a whole other thing when you want to prevent individuals from engaging in gambling, prostitution, pornography, and drugs. They even do this within our own borders for things that are legal, just look at the hell that cannabis dispensaries have to go through to deal with cash due to having no access to banks.
Hell, if the police merely catch you with a lot of cash, they'll just take it from you and keep it, and they can just spend it on whatever the hell they want. No due process at all, it's dirty money until you prove otherwise, and even having a bank withdrawal receipt isn't enough proof.
Know what though? They can't seize your Bitcoin wallet without due process, even if they somehow knew there was a lot of money in it. They'd actually have to get a warrant or some other form of court order for that. If you make it suck to use the dollar, then guess what? People won't use it.
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To borrow a quote from when Game of Thrones was a good show. Power is power.
Power is a huge part of life. Most of us have little to do with it, but we benefit or feel oppressed by it. The average person in the average country is pretty much the same. Yet, that average person in the US/Canada/Europe lives a far better life than the average person in various other countries. They might be just as skilled, hardworking...
It is because we benefit from our powerful nation/leaders. If it helps think of 2 chimpanze
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...just look at the hell that cannabis dispensaries have to go through to deal with cash due to having no access to banks.
Hell, if the police merely catch you with a lot of cash, they'll just take it from you and keep it
...
Even better: Now police are using civil asset forfeiture to target the armored cars used by dispensaries:
https://www.kcur.org/news/2022... [kcur.org]
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Agreeing with every law and regulation isn't a requirement therein.
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There's better crypto than BTC. He's about 9 years behind the curve technologically-speaking. If he's willing to educate himself about newer projects that are superior to BTC then maybe he can spearhead some actual progress on the government side.
Cruz is kind of a weasel otherwise, but . . . weasels are pretty impressive creatures if you think about it.