My friend’s enemy = My enemy

My friend’s friend = My friend

My enemy’s friend = My enemy

My enemy’s enemy = My friend

When Reality Wins, the West Will Suffer

The Ukrainian money-laundering racket continues.

Last week Joe Biden pledged another $3 billion in aid to Ukraine. The aid includes weapon systems that will allow Ukraine to defend itself over the “long term.”

Just how long is the long term? How long does the administration plan on watching Ukraine be destroyed simply because they want to weaken Russia?

By now, it’s a familiar script. Ukraine says, "Give us more money and we'll counterattack." Then they skim the money, wait a week or two and make the same demand. Biden gives them your tax money. Wash, rinse and repeat.

But support for Ukraine’s money-laundering racket is resulting in the impoverishment of Europe. Germans are buying firewood. Poles are lined up for days to buy coal. They just want to keep warm in winter, but globalist elites don't care. Regular people are just pawns in the service of the globalist agenda.

Last week, French President Emmanuel Macron said, “We are living through the end of abundance.” Well, that’s true if elites manage to shut down the oil and gas industries while forcing everyone to use costly and inefficient “green” energy.

Let’s unpack this…

Wolves in Sheep’s Clothing
The green energy crowd talks about sustainability and saving the planet, which sounds nice. After all, who doesn’t want a clean environment and to save the planet? That sounds like a policy we should all applaud.

Unfortunately, the reality is quite different. The movement is controlled by corporate and government globalist elites aligned with the World Economic Forum.

The environmental target is part of the climate alarmist effort to use phony climate change claims as a Trojan Horse to destroy the oil and natural gas industries, shut down internal-combustion engines and force countries to use wind turbines and solar modules that are intermittent and nonscalable.

They’re also trying to take over global finance and central banks (through the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero, or GFANZ), to prevent new loans to oil and natural gas firms and to force loans to subsidize electric vehicles (EVs) and battery manufacturers.

Never mind that CO2 is not poisonous (it’s plant food and humans exhale it all day) and that batteries are poisonous. Never mind that there is no climate change emergency. There simply is no existential climate crisis as the alarmists claim.

There may have been very slight warming from 1995⁠–⁠2005 (which is perfectly normal) but there is no evidence either that CO2 is the principal cause or that human activity is a material factor.

Here, I discuss U.S. and Chinese CO2 emissions and the folly of the Paris Climate Accord, which Biden recommitted to after Trump wisely pulled the U.S. out of it.

Real Climate Change
Climate change itself happens all the time and had happened long before the invention of the automobile. The Medieval Warm Period from about AD 950–1250 featured unusually warm temperatures in the North Atlantic region. This was the period when the Vikings roamed as far as Canada and farms were thriving in Greenland in areas now covered in ice.

The Little Ice Age, which reached an intense phase from 1650–1725, featured frozen canals in Holland — one reason the Dutch are such competitive speed skaters today. In London, you could cross the frozen River Thames on ice and winter carnivals were held on the frozen river.

Both of these episodes occurred centuries before the invention of the automobile. You get the point.

But the elites just want you under their thumb using expensive technologies that they themselves control. If that means you must suffer from greatly diminished living standards, so be it. It’s also why Germans are stocking up on firewood and Poles are lining up for days to buy coal in the 21st century. It's more like the 18th century.

We need to consider the role of sanctions in all this.

I Hate to Gloat, But…
As soon as the first economic and financial sanctions were imposed on Russia by the U.S. and EU at the beginning of the war in Ukraine, I wrote and said that the sanctions would fail to deter Russia.

I went further and said that the sanctions would do more harm to the U.S. than Russia and that sanctions would actually help Russia by reducing the power of the oligarchs (Putin’s rivals) and increasing the price of energy (Russia’s main source of hard currency).

All of those forecasts proved to be correct. I’m not trying to toot my own horn. I just want to illustrate how clueless our so-called elites and policymakers are. They’re simply incapable of thinking even one move ahead.

Instead of sanctions hurting Russia, it’s making over $21 billion per month from its energy exports. That’s far more than they made before the war, and the Russian ruble is stronger than it was before the war. In fact, the head of the Central Bank of Russia recently cut interest rates because the ruble was too strong.

Of course, all the “experts” said that sanctions would cripple the ruble.

Meanwhile the U.S. is in a recession, inflation is at 40-year highs, interest rates are rising and gas and food prices have doubled in the past year. In Europe it’s worse with energy and food shortages looming in the months ahead.

Could the situation get any worse? Actually, yes.

A New OPEC Based on Natural Gas?
By weaponizing the U.S. dollar, freezing Russia’s assets and ejecting Russia from the global payments systems, the U.S. has forced Russia to consider alternative payment currencies, alternative payment channels and possibly a new global reserve currency including new digital currencies backed by a basket of commodities including gold.

These projects are already underway in the BRICS+ meetings and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, both of which are centered around Russia and China. Now a new effort has begun to form a natural gas cartel with participation by Russia and Iran and eventually other countries.

This new organization could function like OPEC except that the strategic asset would be natural gas rather than oil. Other countries that could join this new cartel include Qatar and Azerbaijan. Russia, Iran and Qatar alone control about 60% of the world’s natural gas reserves.

Such a cartel would be in a position to strike exclusive deals with favored buyers like China, which would leave Europe out in the cold literally and figuratively.

We need to confront the reality that the sanctions were a blunder from the start. But the “hate Russia” crowd was so blinded by their contempt for Putin that they plowed ahead regardless.

Now the unforeseen consequences are emerging and they’re even worse than the critics imagined.

The globalist elites and Western politicians pursue their fantasies of windmills and solar modules while serious countries like Russia and Iran gain a lock on the only energy supplies that will really matter for the foreseeable future — oil and gas.

When ideology and reality collide, reality always wins in the end. That doesn’t bode well for the West.

Author: Jim Rickards (for Altucher Confidential)

When will Saudis revolt against their rulers?

For a revolution to occur, people must go through starvation, injustice, and instability. We have seen such revolutions occur in Syria, Lebanon, Iran, Iraq, Libya, and Venezuela, but not in Saudi Arabia.

The Saudi people have never taken to the streets because living standards are high, justice and equality are ensured, and the crime rate is very low (among the lowest in the world). On top of that, each Saudi is entitled to the following:

Free education from kindergarten through graduate school (including paid scholarships abroad).
Free healthcare for all (including medicine and complex surgeries).

Subsidized gas and water prices.

No income tax and only 15% VAT.

Here in Saudi, there is a strong tie between the government and the people. There is a trust that promises will be delivered, and they do get delivered!


Source: https://www.quora.com/When-will-Saudis-revolt-against-their-rulers

Many Neteller users wonder why it is so expensive.

Neteller is very popular among traders, bettors and investors. Most online brokers offer Neteller for deposits and withdrawals, and that payment system has a lot of flexibility.

However, Neteller is not easy to come by, especially for Nigerians who don’t have many deposit options (unlike their foreign counterparts).

And most people buy Neteller and fewer and fewer people sell. If there were many people selling Neteller, it won’t be scarce.

Many people are not selling Neteller because you need to make profits from the markets before you can sell, and you need to know that, making money from the market is not an easy thing, especially consistent money.

There are some traders who have large quantities of Neteller but they are not ready to sell because they don’t need the money. They want to sell only when they need the money, and they sell according to their needs only. We cannot force such people to sell to us.

Finally, apart from scarcity, Neteller is expensive because the costs of transfers are very high. Imagine paying 3 USD to send only 100 USD worth of Neteller. That is the cost we bear for you.

Neteller fees are no longer capped as it used to be. If you buy 1000 USD worth of Neteleller from us, then we bear close to 30 USD as fees for you, because you need to get the exact amount you pay for. And in the face of this high fees, we need to increase the spreads in order to remain in business.

So the most important thing is that you make profits as a trader or a bettor. Once you make profits consistently, you can always sell Neteller to us to make more and more money and that is our prayers for you.

May you continue to make profits.

To fund and withdraw with Neteller, please visit: www.instantforex.com.ng

Summary: The big upgrade to Ethereum — a.k.a. “The Merge” — is planned to be a once-in-a-lifetime switch from Proof of Work to Proof of Stake, making Ethereum more energy-efficient and potentially much more valuable. Three ways to invest now: buy ETH, stake ETH, or invest in the top staking companies.

Windows 95 was a huge deal.

It’s hard to believe now, but the launch of Windows 95 was a global phenomenon.

Journalists from around the world descended on Microsoft’s Redmond headquarters for a massive event, hosted by the comedian Jay Leno.

To celebrate the new Start button in the lower left corner, Microsoft paid millions of dollars to license “Start It Up” by the Rolling Stones.

Sales of the operating system immediately broke records.

Windows 95 was a radical departure for Microsoft.

It was the first Windows to streamline the graphical user interface for the masses: even your grandpa could find the Start button.

It was the first 32-bit operating system, which meant every app needed to be rewritten to take advantage of its new architecture.

It was a huge step forward. And it was a massive success.

At computer stores (most people still bought software in stores), lines stretched down the block. It sold 40 million copies in its first year, quadrupling sales of all previous Windows versions combined.

Microsoft’s stock price soared, quickly doubling in value and starting a magnificent 25-year run:

The Merge as an Inflection Point
Technology often has these “inflection points.” Because Windows was the operating system installed on most computers (Apple was in its death throes at the time, and only weirdos used Macs), Windows 95 radically changed the world.

Ethereum’s upcoming upgrade — “The Merge” — is a similarly huge event, but it won’t be celebrated with traditional marketing campaigns. There will be no big-name comedian at the launch event (there may not even be a launch event).

But The Merge will be every bit as transformative as Windows 95 because The Merge will upgrade the operating system of crypto. Here are 3 ways to invest early.

Investing Opportunity #1: Buy and Hold ETH
There are plenty of Layer 1 blockchain platforms, but Ethereum is the largest by far, holding 2/3 of the overall market:

That huge slice is Ethereum.

In blockchain, the principle of “network effects” is enormous: the more people using a tech platform, the more valuable it becomes. Ethereum has network effects galore: more users, more developers, and more apps than any other L1 blockchain.

If Ethereum keeps innovating — as Microsoft did with Windows 95 — they’ll further that lead, creating a significant competitive moat.

The Merge is an enormous innovation because it will cut Ethereum’s energy usage by 99.95%. (You read that right.) All the arguments about crypto using too much electricity will go up in a puff of smoke … except for the energy-hungry bitcoin, which may start looking like a worse investment than Ethereum.

The new Ethereum may also become deflationary. That’s a good thing for investors, as it means that instead of continually enlarging the pie and diluting your ownership stake, the pie may start shrinking – making your stake more valuable.

The easiest investing opportunity is to simply buy and hold ETH. You can already see the correlation between The Merge getting closer and the price of ETH going up as investors start to wake up from their crypto winter hibernation:

ETH price over the last month, as The Merge looks more and more likely

In my view, The Flippening — where Ethereum eventually overtakes bitcoin in total market cap — is likely. Ethereum is innovating at a furious pace; bitcoin is not.

Investing Opportunity #2: Stake ETH

When you stake ETH, you earn rewards, generally in the form of more ETH (like earning interest), and sometimes in another token as well. (See our workshop on How to Stake ETH for more.) There are a few staking options.

Solo staking. If you’re tech-savvy with at least 32 ETH (about $50,000 today), you can run a validator node (instructions here): basically, souped-up PCs running special validator software. These machines “run” the new Proof-of-Stake Ethereum network in the same way that mining machines “run” the bitcoin network.

Staking as a service. If you’ve got the ETH but don’t want to manage your own node, you can deposit it with a staking service, which will run the validators on your behalf, and split the reward. (List of Ethereum staking services here; please DYOR.)

Pooled staking. For most of us, the cheaper and easier option is to stake your Ethereum with services like Lido or Rocket Pool. These let you stake smaller amounts of ETH, which they “pool” together to run their own validators. Users share in the rewards.

Lido is the more user-friendly option by far, allowing you to stake any amount in an easy Web3 interface (try it out here). Lido has grown so popular that a new problem has emerged: the service may end up staking up over 50% of Ethereum, which would give it control over the network. (Mo money, mo problems.)

Rocket Pool offers a similar service, but it also lets you run “minipools” with just 16 ETH, plus additional collateral (instructions here). It’s a cheaper option than running a full node, but it still requires an IT background and a lot of spare time.

Centralized exchange staking. The easiest option is to simply stake your ETH using exchanges like Binance. You won’t get as many rewards, but it’s probably the safest and easiest option, as the big exchanges want to keep their investors safe: they have a lot at stake.

Investing Opportunity #3: Invest in LDO and/or RPL directly

Both Lido and Rocket Pool have their own native tokens (LDO and RPL, respectively), which are used as additional rewards. Our investing thesis is always that buying a token is like buying stock in the underlying “company.”

Rather than staking ETH with Lido and gradually accruing LDO rewards, in other words, you can simply buy LDO now if you believe the value of the Lido “company” will increase over time.

Think about it this way: you see a transformative new technology hitting the market, but it’s still too geeky for the mainstream. A company finds a way to make it more user-friendly, and they rapidly gobble up a third of the entire market, with people worried that it might go even bigger.

This is exactly what is happening with Lido.

But who or what is Lido? It’s a Decentralized Autonomous Organization, which means you can see what’s happening in the “company” in real-time via their message board. For example, here’s a proposed budget that would grow the team to 80+ employees.

Today, however, the team is small: they have just six core devs, located primarily in Russia and Eastern Europe. But they’re backed by a number of big investors, including some OGs in the crypto space.

And they’re growing like a weed.

Rocket Pool, on the other hand, is trying desperately to keep up with Lido. Compared with Lido's smooth Web3 interface, trying to set up a Rocket Pool minipool is like trying to build a quantum computer in your bathtub.

If Rocket Pool wants to beat Lido, they have to focus on one thing: making the product user-friendly. That’s it. Product, product, product.

In my view, both LDO and RPL are high-risk, potentially high-reward investments. The hope is that you’re investing early in the next big thing, and their fortunes will rise with the launch of The Merge.

Mo reward, mo risk
If you want to take advantage of the sweet rewards of The Merge, never invest more than you're willing to lose, because there are still significant risks, such as:

The Merge is not guaranteed to happen. It is looking increasingly likely, but it has been delayed several times already.

If you stake ETH now, you may not be able to get it out until The Merge does happen.

If you invest in LDO or RPL, those services may not stand the stress test of The Merge – or they may be eclipsed by even better staking services.

That said, I think these are some of the most exciting times in crypto — this generation’s equivalent of the Windows 95 launch. This is why we’re issuing our first-ever BUY ALERT for both ETH and LDO.

Start it up.

Source: https://learn2.trade/3-ways-to-invest-in-the-merge