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James
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Today’s attack on Sumy’s civilians cannot be forgiven

Replying to Avatar Lyn Alden

GM.

Chapter 13 of Broken Money is called "Heavy is the Head that Wears the Crown".

It focuses on the US trade deficit and why it arises structurally. In short, since the USD is the global reserve currency (for reserve assets, international contracts, FX trading pairs, and cross-border funding), there is tremendous automatic demand for USD in the world compared to other fiat currencies.

To supply the world with that ever-growing need for USD to service all sorts of needs, the United States runs structural trade deficits with the rest of the world. That's how the USD spills out to the rest of the world for them to use. And the mechanism for that is that the overvalued USD boosts Americans' import power, reduces Americans' low-margin export competiveness, and basically forces open that trade deficit.

That trade deficit is the cost of maintaining the benefits USD system as currently structured. The fatal flaw is that those who bear the cost (e.g. industrialists in the Rust Belt) are not the same as those to gain the benefits (e.g. Wall Street and Washington DC folks). And those costs and benefits accumulate over decades, resulting in rising populism and pushback, which is now front and center.

The challenge that the administration faces is that they have identified a real problem, but are tackling the surface issues rather than the underlying structural issues.

Anyway, I uploaded that chapter 13 on my website for free reading:

https://www.lynalden.com/wp-content/uploads/broken-money-chapter-13.pdf

As usual you point in the right direction

Can you explain this Lyn? If you put a dollar in a bank it goes to state treasuries or to loans to businesses. If you put a dollar in a stable coin it goes to state treasuries . Both cases financing the somebody else debt

Replying to Avatar Lyn Alden

I agree with this take.

I would add that connections matter. I see many people on Nostr say that blue-checks still use Twitter mainly for audience reach. They’re addicted to the reach, and so forth.

While I do love the dunking on blue-checks overall (as a blue-check myself, it amuses me and you should keep it coming), I’d point out that it’s more than that.

When I was temporarily locked out of my 700k+ follower permissioned account on Twitter, I didn’t lose sleep over not being able to broadcast to people. I have email lists and other mechanisms for that, where it economically matters.

What I lost sleep over is that I couldn’t see my friends’ posts or DMs. The *receiver* side of it all.

Similarly, when people ask me why I don’t just leave Twitter and be Nostr exclusive, that’s the reason. My friends aren’t just bitcoiners; they’re also tradfi people. Twitter is where they are. Leaving that network would mean leaving friends. Would mean not seeing their content.

-Twitter is the fastest news source. I literally monitor it as part of my research process.

-Twitter is where my friends are. The tradfi community isn’t on Instagram or TikTok or Facebook. It’s on Twitter. Bitcoiners too. I’ve been open here on Nostr about dealing with isolation when my husband has had to be in Egypt longer than normal due to a construction process, and my social media life, both here and on Twitter, has been helpful for me at dealing with that. The sheer amount of people I know on Twitter, and the rapidity of responses, is really powerful.

That network effect is so strong. It’s generally not optimal to try to attack it directly.

Instead, you need to build and popularize things that *can’t* be done by Twitter. Zaps are the go-to example. But also using the social graph for non-social media things (ie reviews). Be a compliment to Twitter that a user *also* needs, rather than trying to convince a user to leave Twitter and join Nostr.

That’s how you win. How we win.

nostr:nevent1qqsf0sqdllvshxs3yf0le80ew00kkqse66e3ww44z6vgkvm0psfu2rspzemhxw309ucnjv3wxymrst338qhrww3hxumnw5kadfj

What is a Zap?

Being strong with the weak and weak with the strong ones is the recipe for disaster

Peter, what is the current standing? Are you leading the league?

Good morning Nostr!

Btc not stopping!