Sunday, June 21, 2020

Carpe Opportunitas

In Article 134, written three weeks ago, I claimed that ‘the world’s financial system is now in its death throes’. Amid the contrived oppression from the COVID-19 pretext, fiat currencies are being conjured out of thin air in ever greater quantities. Most of this ‘funny money’ is being used to prop up zombie banks and corporations. The flip side of the coin is imminent hyperinflation for the masses and unpayable debts for generations yet unborn. It amazes me that they continue to get away with it.

Furthermore, central banks are cranking up their war on cash. Their aim is to abolish notes and coins (an independent medium of exchange) and make all currency digital (and issued by themselves alone). This would be a catastrophe for human liberty. All transactions could be monitored. Funds could be cut off altogether, for whatever reason – e.g. political dissidence or not being a ‘good’ (obedient) citizen – leaving the affected individual unable to buy even a loaf of bread. These dangers should be apparent to all. Sleepwalkers, awaken!

Let us assume that cash will indeed become obsolete very soon. There are two potential (digital) outcomes. One is a system controlled by banksters and corrupt politicians, where digital currencies would still be created, at will, from nothing, inflicting inflation, then equally painful subsequent deflation, on the masses (Figure 136.1). The same psychopaths would remain in charge.


Figure 136.1: The banking establishment realizes that an economic revolution is imminent. Its intention is to substitute the present system for a digital one – while retaining control.

Copyright © 2019 CryptoWorld Club

There is, however, as I mentioned previously, an ingenious alternative in the form of Bitcoin (BTC). Banksters hate BTC, because it poses a mortal threat to their supremacy – although the thundering hypocrites invest in it nonetheless. The supply of BTC is finite, and it operates perfectly without any centralized control. As with all decentralized finance – or ‘de-fi’ – X may transfer currency to Y without an intermediate making the rules, setting interest rates and creaming off fees. In other words, banksters would become redundant – forever.

Other cryptocurrencies have enormous potential, too. Ethereum (ETH), created by a phenomenal Informatics geek called Vitalik Buterin (Figure 136.2), provides a digital platform for de-fi and smart contracts. Chainlink (LINK) is another decentralized network, enabling data to be transferred rapidly, securely, and without any need for a controlling intermediary.


Figure 136.2: Vitalik Buterin wrote his white paper for Ethereum at the age of 19.

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These and many other digital currencies offer tokens on crypto exchanges. Their respective values have rocketed within the last decade and are set to explode further when adopted more extensively by both businesses and retail investors.

The fourth cryptocurrency I would like to mention is a personal favourite. Tezos (XTZ) has the in-built ability to oversee and continually modify its own operating system, relying on a so-called ‘proof of stake’ protocol. The more it is adopted and used, the more validated and secure it becomes. It also offers another perk. Investors can ‘stake’ their XTZ on crypto exchanges, thereby supporting the network’s operations, and are rewarded proportionally. It is comparable to earning bank interest, although there are two differences: first, there is no ‘bank’; and, second, the current XTZ interest rate is approximately 4.9% (compared with 0.1 to 0.5% offered by banks). It is a no-brainer. It will soon be possible to ‘stake’ ETH as well, although a minimum of 32 ETH tokens (currently £5,900 or 7,350 US$) will be required to earn 10% per annum (Figure 136.3).


Figure 136.3: These four cryptocurrencies – (from top left, clockwise) Bitcoin, Ethereum, Chainlink and Tezos – are not only highly profitable investments. They also have the potential to disarm corrupt, self-serving banking institutions and help to return power to where it belongs: with the people.

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One final observation: during the recent race riots in the USA, a masked protestor remarked presciently that, if enough ordinary people removed their money from banks and transferred it to decentralized crypto assets, a stake would be driven through the rotten hearts of the moneychangers. We now have a way to destroy the corrupt system. All we need is education and the requisite collective will.

Copyright © 2020 Paul Spradbery

Sunday, June 07, 2020

Shropshire Lads

Shropshire is, geographically, one of England’s most underrated counties. It is, in pleasing contrast to many others, mostly rural and sparsely populated. It moves at its own pace. One of its greatest advocates was the London and Cambridge-educated classical scholar Alfred Edward Housman (1859-1936), whose collection of poems, A Shropshire Lad, remains popular to this day. Housman reflected and reminisced about the natural beauty and simplicity of his childhood environment, while lamenting the relentless, remorseless passing of time.

Housman admitted that he had written his opus magnum with a young male readership in mind. So much so, that even one of his great critics, fellow poet W. H. Auden (1907-73), conceded that ‘no other poet seemed so perfectly to express the sensibility of a male adolescent’.

It seemed fitting, then, that I recently spent a perfect day in the Shropshire countryside with my younger son, twelve years of age. After driving across its sun-drenched plains, we rocked up at Hawkstone Park (Figure 135.1), an elevated 100-acre expanse of landscaped parkland, with exposed rocks, steep footpaths and a collection of 18th-century follies. (Our shared interest in follies stems from a visit described in Article 76, Folly Followers.)

Figure 135.1: A panoramic view from Hawkstone Park. Enlarge to view.

https://www.hawkstoneparkfollies.co.uk

Copyright © 2017 Interesting Hotels

Restored in the early 1990s, Hawkstone is Grade-1 listed on the UK’s National Register of Historic Parks and Gardens (Figure 135.2). We trekked for three hours – the initial ascent is quite strenuous – following a maze of winding paths, through jungles of full-bloom rhododendrons, to each meticulously-renovated folly, stopping every few minutes to take photographs and admire the Housmanian views across the Shropshire plains (Figure 135.3).

Figure 135.2: Map of the park and its main features

Copyright © 2020 Hawkstone Park Follies


Figure 135.3: Undulating footpaths and greened-up rock faces

Copyright © 2020 Paul Spradbery

Despite the current lockdown restrictions, there were perhaps fifty or so people wandering around this magical, hilly terrain. I could only shake my head at the sight of young, healthy-looking adults wearing surgical masks outdoors. If only they knew that coronaviruses cannot withstand warm temperatures and ultraviolet sunlight. Their risk of contracting any virus under such conditions was probably less than that of being struck by a falling tree. Had they known the odds, would they have worn hardhats too, or perhaps boycotted the place altogether out of fear? (Those whom the gods wish to destroy, they first make mad.)

For the most part, though, my son and I were on our own and happy to be so. There was no traffic noise at all. Only birds in the oaks and squirrels among the rhododendrons disturbed the silence. We sat for a while at the woodland’s edge, gazing across a vast, gently-sloping cornfield towards the 18-century Hawkstone Hall mansion, the nearby village of Marchamley, with its scattering of thatched roofs poking through the sunny afternoon haze, and ever more straw-coloured fields and meadows, far, far beyond. There, I recited a Housman verse for my son:

‘Into my heart an air that kills.

From yon far country blows:

What are those blue remembered hills,

What spires, what farms are those?’

At the top of the main terrace, we crossed a Swiss bridge spanning two rocky outcrops (Figure 135.4). Above a fifty-metre drop, it was safer than it appeared. From the park’s northwestern extremity, it was possible to see the Wrekin, a solitary 1,335-foot (407-metre) hill rising above the plain, fifteen miles south. From there we began the descending leg of our journey, along the Lower Path. More undulating than the ascent, we twisted and turned through narrow walkways (Figure 135.5), parts of shallow caves, and exposed trails with stunning views to the west and south.

Figure 135.4: Don’t look down from the Swiss bridge. 

Copyright © 2020 Paul Spradbery

Figure 135.5: ‘The Squeeze’, halfway down the Lower Path

Copyright © 2020 Paul Spradbery

While the rest of the world was engaged in a spectacular show of (COVID) madness and paranoia, my son and I ignored them all. We roamed free and relaxed, but with a tinge of introspection, exactly as Housman had first done, more than a century ago (Figure 135.6).

‘The troubles of our proud and angry dust

Are from eternity, and shall not fail.

Bear them we can, and if we can we must.

Shoulder the sky, my lad, and drink your ale.’

Figure 135.6: Despite the title of his famous work, A. E. Housman was not a Shropshire lad, having been born in neighbouring Worcestershire.

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Copyright © 2020 Paul Spradbery