FuckyWucky [none/use name]

Pro-stealing art without attribution

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Joined 3 years ago
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Cake day: March 21st, 2023

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  • Ayandeh had attracted deposits from millions of ordinary Iranians by offering unusually high interest rates, creating what one Iranian oversight official allegedly described as a “Ponzi scheme.”

    I find it interesting why such a commercial bank was allowed to operate by the regulators. The WSJ article says it was giving bad loans to cronies, so that was definitely the government’s fault. But the bank’s collapse alone doesn’t explain why there was a run out of the rial. It’s easy to blame the collapse of the bank for the collapse of the rial, but I think it’s mostly mainstream economic propaganda. Also, backstopping is literally what all the Western central banks and treasuries did in 2008 and again in 2023, because the banks gave too many loans or held assets which were illiquid, with no inflation, in fact deflation as demand collapsed in 2008. So clearly, it’s not as simple as backstopping deposits.

    I think it could be said that the dual exchange rate system where the central bank offered preferential rates to certain sectors, and rent seekers too, made it much worse, since the official rate was much more rigid, undervalued because the central bank used reserves to maintain it, certain connected people may have used it to run to dollars while the state lost reserves. When it ran out, a massive devaluation was inevitable.

    Also, he doesn’t talk about the mechanics of how he created a dollar shortage. Did they try going after foreign banks Iran worked with, like in Iraq? I think the government is at least partly to blame, but this wouldn’t have happened if Iran weren’t sanctioned.














  • Bitcoin is not different from the USD fiscal policy space wise. You use USD (which you obtain from trade, remitances, loans and capital inflows) to buy Bitcoin or use the same USD to buy ASICs to mine Bitcoin with. In the end you hope to sell it to someone else to get more USD than you started with.

    Even if it’s not for conversion then would the population like to use a system where there is no physical cash form of bitcoin (El Salvador has large informal economy) fully dependent on internet, electricity and a smartphone. Would the Government make budget denominated in bitcoin? How will all the pricing be done? Why should El Salvador go through all these complications instead of adopting its own currency where it’ll have more fiscal space?

    Bitcoin was never widely used in El Salvador outside small transfer payments which would’ve been converted to Dollars pretty quick anyways.

    Having your own currency gives you power to manipulate exchange rate and employ domestic resources instead of having to borrow continously from the IMF.

    Not saying that a sovereign currency alone is enough. Countries may not be able to enforce taxes enough or try pegging rates to the Dollar to prevent pass-through inflation and balance of payments issues. But it is a necessity.




  • Not really what I said. I said gold and all the commodities are denominated in Dollars.

    You hold gold because you hope to sell it at a future date for more dollars. You hope China doesn’t find more gold or some country decides to release gold locked in vaults. In the end you want more dollars than you started with.

    Same with bitcoin which is going up in price because of a flood of Dollars from ETFs and due to Trump’s potential policies. You want bitcoin to go up in price so you can sell it for more dollars.

    Another thing to keep in mind is that Bitcoin has characteristics of a real asset, not a financial asset.

    Dollars, you can give to the US Government for payment of taxes etc. There is a corrosponding liability at the Fed. That is not the case with “real” assets like Bitcoin, there is no corrosponding liability.




  • Ok, can they sell it then? What’s the use of Bitcoin? Why are you valuing it in Dollars? Countries accumulate Dollars and other first world currencies to be able to import more (and in case of El Salvador, spend more domestically). Bitcoin is sitting there doing nothing.

    Same applies to massive foreign exchange reserves like in the case of China. But still, atleast forex reserves can be quickly used to stabilize the exchange rates.

    Also keep in mind even if they sell it and assuming there is enough liquidity, $300m one time isn’t a lot of money even for a country like El Salvador.