Bitcoin: the future or a bubble?

If your life is anything like mine (or not), you too would have heard several stories from friends and family about how they were offered to buy bitcoins at a very low amount a while back and now regret losing that opportunity since the value has hiked so much. Bitcoin is everywhere these days – it’s on the news, all over social media – everyone you know seems to be interested in this one thing. But is it really all that?

Bitcoin holds a dark side not many of us are aware of. A huge majority of bitcoin users right now are law abiding citizens that just want to increase the amount of money in their pockets, but that doesn’t mean that big shady transactions don’t take place through this virtual currency all the time. The anonymity that bitcoin offers allows for utmost convenience for crimes to take place. From drug trade to organ trade to human trafficking to an actual ransomware attack, bitcoin is increasingly being used by dangerous crime groups and serious criminals for their benefit.

It’s important to understand that as attractive as the investment seems, there isn’t even an identity attached to the person that created all of this. You will basically be giving your hard earned money to a system where you have no legal recourse, which was created by individuals you (or anyone, really) don’t know at all. In case you lose all this “money” you’ve “earned” in a scam, there will be no way for you to take any legal action towards anyone, thanks to the absolute inability to track bitcoin users.

Apart from all of this, it is also just very volatile. It is known to have drastic ups and downs in its value. It has hiked a few times in earlier years (2010 & 2013), right before experiencing a crazy fall right afterwards.

source: https://blockchain.info/

And in the end, bitcoin is neither a tangible asset, nor a form of fiat money. Owning 1000 bitcoins is virtually a lot but in reality it is nothing. Everyone is investing in bitcoin with the assumption that someday someone else will give them cash in exchange or that bitcoin will become the go to currency for everything. And this speculation is leading to more and more people investing in bitcoins without any research or information (Sounds like many other speculative bubbles, that all burst at some point).

Maybe, rather than trying to entirely ban or halt bitcoin activities, governments can find solutions to use such an advanced technology to their advantage? Maybe there is a reason they haven’t done it yet? Either way, as individuals – it’s better to be safe, than sorry. Just as Warren Buffet said, “If you don’t understand it, don’t invest in it!”

Tell me what YOU think about the bitcoin.

CORPORATE GREED IS KILLING THE ECONOMY (AND THE PLANET).

Climate change is showing it’s effects everywhere at the moment. Floods, forest fires, hurricanes, mud slides, heat waves and just about everything that could go wrong with the planet is happening right about now.

Yet there are people claiming that climate change is a hoax. It is no coincidence that all of these people make profit off industries that are pretty much killing our planet. Profit is the sole reason why we “haven’t found a solution” to climate change yet. Corporate greed already has many adverse effects on various societies/economies in the world, but soon there will be no societies or economies and there will be no world because of it.

Let’s see what climate change will cost us on the basis of few of the factors economists use to study economic development & well-being:

• GDP  “Natural disasters” will have a massive impact on the macro economies of the world. Initially, only the local economies of the affected countries will be impacted, however this impact will gradually spread out and influence other economies. Also, extreme weather conditions lead to governments having to spend millions for extensive repair of infrastructure. The GDP at risk of just the major cities in the world is $1.5 trillion (this might near $2.2 trillion by the year 2025). The global GDP per capita is predicted to be 23% lower in 2100.
• Productivity Climate change will lead to a huge loss in productivity. As we saw with hurricanes Harvey and Irma – many industries were affected; production and trade had to pause and the over all productivity of the areas affected went down drastically. People can’t get to work, consumers can’t reach shops, supply chains don’t function efficiently at all; basically the entire economy is damaged. Climate change will also lead to a less healthy population (more below) which will in turn reduce the productivity of labor in any economy.
• Health Climate change will lead to impure air, unsafe drinking water, insufficient food and fewer options of shelter. The increase in global temperatures is predicted to cause an increase in diseases like malaria, dengue, diarrhoea and heat stress. According to WHO, the direct damage costs to health (i.e. excluding costs in health-determining sectors such as agriculture and water and sanitation), is estimated to be between US$ 2-4 billion/year by 2030.

• Well-being The well-being of majority of the world’s population will be at risk. According to Business Insider, “a 2014 study published in Environmental Research Letters predicted that sea level rise created by a temperature increase of 3 degrees C would force more than 600 million people to find new homes.” The social  and environmental factors impacting health will be affected. About 20 million more children are estimated to go hungry by 2050.

‘Every day we at WFP see the effects of the ravages of weather-related hunger on the people we assist. Every day we see people suffer from droughts and floods. Every year the situation gets worse.’ – Executive Director, World Food Programme

It’s easy to tell that climate change is going to cost the macro economies of the world a lot. Anybody that says fighting climate change isn’t easy because it’s expensive should know that not fighting it means just throwing your money away. (also the cost of fighting it is less by at least $7 billion). Corporate greed and capitalism are the only things stopping us from fighting climate change. Owners of big corporations want us to believe that climate change is a hoax because they’re the ones making profit from causing it. Immediate action against climate change is the only way to sustain the macro economies of the world and the world itself!