Choice
Daily Ramble
It’s always an interesting time in the Halliburton household when the missus heads out for the week. Naia whimpers a bit for her mom in the wee morning hours when sadness gets the best of her, the food schedule gets a bit wonky, and my beard stubble grows a bit longer — all normal and expected. Life is good. Good enough that Naia and I made it to a freedom demonstration on Saturday, pushing back on the idea of vaccination mandates. With all the music, good company, and lots of other kids, we had a blast.
I’ve gone through my reasons why I don’t plan to be vaccinated any time soon in previous Rambles: I’ve already had COVID, I don’t have any comorbidities making COVID particularly dangerous to me, the vaccine has no long-term health studies, the vaccine is new technology which doesn’t meet the definition of a vaccine, the virus itself comes from the cold family of viruses which constantly mutate and change making it unlikely any vaccine works for long, and there’s no solid evidence getting the vaccine stops me from transmitting COVID to others asymptomatically. The way I see it, humanity is tilting against the windmill of death and believes it can win. Because, you know, playing god always works out well…
Going to the demonstration crystallized my perspective on forced vaccinations. It really is about freedom. Freedom to choose what is done to your own body. The argument of forced vaccination when there are effective treatments and relatively few people dying from COVID doesn’t make sense. That’s not to say I’m against the vaccine for other people. If I were elderly or had comorbidities, I would consider it. But I’m not. So why should I inject myself with something I’ve evaluated as riskier than COVID itself? I should do it out of respect for other’s fear? Does that make me selfish that I won’t?
Here is what I fear: an encroachment on what governments are allowed to do to our bodies. Yours and mine, vaccinated or unvaccinated. No us vs. them in this argument. Let’s rise above the stupidity of tribally labeling ourselves as vaxxed and unvaxxed for the moment and be human together. By allowing a forced vaccination for COVID, even if you think everyone should be vaccinated, you are giving your government implicit permission to regulate our bodies in a very new and dangerous way. Even when we agree with a specific governmental decision, the precedent itself is the insidious sidecar along for the ride.
Let me give some examples: income tax, the 9/11 Patriot Act, and Know Your Customer (KYC) regulations. Each of these legislative actions was pushed through during peak emotion in the population. And each of these legislative precedents has crept until we now have the following respective situations: income tax impacts poor and middle classes more than the rich it had initially targeted, every President now has unprecedented wartime and eavesdropping capabilities, and KYC regulations add tremendous cost to the finance industry while doing little to thwart terrorism and money laundering.
Let’s imagine we give our governments the power to force vaccinations on those who do not want it. Do you really believe that the power to mandate vaccinations will stay at just COVID? What if the popular will of society decides that overpopulation of our planet is a threat to collective survival and those “weakest” amongst us should be given sterilization injections? It’s the same logic, no?
So, if you’re for forced COVID vaccinations, take a second to consider the actual power you’re giving your government by holding that position. History tells us that it will not stop at COVID vaccinations.
Amazing Things on the Interweb
If fireworks aren’t your thing, skip to 1:30 to see 1,800 drones in the Tokyo sky simulating Earth. Much wow!
Bitcoin Price Prediction
Weekend: $29.7k - $33.5k
Today: $35.2k - $40.2k
Tomorrow: $36.5k - $40.2k
Volatility and short squeeze!! That about summarizes the weekend and my highly under-rated forecast. What am I talking about?
When Friday’s newsletter was published, the bulls were showing some strength, pushing the price into the $32k region. For the first time in weeks, there was some staying power behind the move. Instead of giving up any ground, the bulls kept pushing. Then, at the beginning of today’s session, they initiated a short squeeze that absolutely wrecked bears who continued to hold their positions. Again, recall that a short squeeze is created by people in short positions having to buy to close out their positions. When a raft of those purchases happens at once, it explosively drives the price higher as it becomes additional buying pressure to what the bulls are already doing. That short squeeze initiated the volatility that I’ve been forecasting the last couple of weeks. It also threw my weekend forecast completely on its head, with prices reaching as high as $39.8k. All in all, it’s been a 36% increase from the lows at $29k.
What do I expect now? Most likely, we’ll see some consolidation before continuation. I’m about 70% convinced by the recent price action days the bottom is in now. A pullback into the $36.5k region would be quite normal before continuing. However, if we close below $36.5k, my 70% confidence in the bottom being in will reduce. Yes, that sounds like I’m flip-flopping, but as the facts change, I change my mind. And the facts have changed.
Bitcoin Q & A
Q: Is Bitcoin programmable money?
A: Yes.
Money has had the same properties for thousands of years: fungible, divisible, scarce, durable, and portable. Bitcoin adds a new, digital-era property — programmability. Just as the internet enabled novel businesses, Bitcoin will enable novel monetary uses cases. Some ideas being explored include: streaming money services for the creator economy, automated and decentralized corporate treasury management, and cost-negligible remittance services. However, it isn’t easy to imagine the types of services Bitcoin will enable in the future when we’re currently at the equivalent adoption levels of the internet of the 1990s.
Thanks for reading,
Kent
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