The appeal of price controls

Yes, we all know it's stupid policy and ultimately will create massive shortages, more government power and general poverty. But Kamala Harris is proposing it and there are political realities that we really need to think about.

Price controls come about politically because they are popular. People like getting stuff for less. In the short term, it makes people happy. They get something that they've been buying without the inflation. Sure, there will be less producers and deep government intervention and eventually scarcity of the product as they go into black markets if at all. But in the short term, when the producers haven't adjusted yet, the stuff looks like it's free and it helps the politician that imposed it.

The last guy to do price controls on food was Richard Nixon, and he had to do it because he suspended dollar convertibility. He had an election to win in 1972, so he implemented price controls. And guess what? He won in a landslide, because he mitigated the effects of the abandonment of the gold standard through price controls.

Long term, the price controls were a complete disaster. Theere were long lines at the gas stations, inflation went into hyperdrive and the productivity of the 70's was completely lost to stagflation. But it got him the election.

So while Kamala's political positions look stupid from the Bitcoiner point of view, don't underestimate its appeal to normies that don't understand economics. It's not as terrible a move as it seems.

Being a life-long truth seeker (it’s how I’ve always been wired) occasionally got me in trouble with a few teachers and even college professors in my younger days. 😂

But, over time, this thirst also led me to:

- become a devout follower of Jesus Christ

- the Bitcoin network

- and now, #nostr

And for these things, I am extremely thankful.

Other than these few things, I’m aggressively pragmatic.

How about you?

Are you a truth-seeker? If so, where has it led you?

Getting into medium of exchange arguments with fiat brains is a futile exercise.

The world doesn’t really need yet another medium of exchange.

But most people *desperately* need an appreciating store of value to combat ubiquitous government fiat currencies, which exist primarily to steal humanity’s purchasing power over time.

#Bitcoin returns, protects, and appreciates purchasing power over time to those who choose to voluntarily join the growing monetary network.

Living this way is fucking retarded. Pray for your normie friends. They’re fucked.

Context is critical.

Hoarding fiat currency (a depreciating asset) over time is incredibly stupid.

Hoarding bitcoin (an appreciating asset) over time is quite intelligent.

This applies to individuals, families, corporations, endowments, pensions, and governments.

My X algorithm is flooded with “UBI is the answer” posts for some reason.

Wasn’t the Covid stimulus a UBI test drive? The results I witnessed were inflation and that it killed ambition & work ethic in several of our practice employees.

Avalon Nano has arrived! Looking forward to a fun weekend project seeing how it is.

Hashing all day long ⚡️#bitaxe

If you're still using firefox, make sure to turn off PPA which is activated by default in the latest version.

home mining ist punkrock

hallo nostr :)

If you’re missing all the macro content from Twitter while you’re here on Nostr, don’t worry, I got you covered. Here’s the macro summary for this quarter.

(You can now safely go back to not giving a shit about macro.)

If you think AML/KYC is bad, try going through KYC when you're effectively a ghost.

Added to our product listings.

I love my family and bitcoin and America in that order.

I don’t give one shit about anything else.