A Stiffening of Upper Lips
In light of the recent news of Korea banning ICOs, and all of the recently similar news surrounding China, Singapore and the United States also moving to take steps to curtail various actions in cryptocurrency markets, Jamie Dimon, of J.P. Morgan Chase Bank’s...”thoughts”...on things, etc. I thought also, I might share some notions of my own on these momentous actions, since everyone’s decided to riff.
The ostensible reasoning behind these market curtailments, is that the various agencies, authorities, grand strategic thinkers, "quants", and "Wolves of Wall Street" of the international financial world would desperately like to save the uninformed investor from their potentially damaging pursuit of boondoggles, economic ruin, and delicious, delicious snake oil.
Let’s play a little game of “angel’s advocate” here though, and explore what might be some ulterior motives behind all of this loving parent-by-proxy concern that extant-international-finance-construct, quite suddenly, has decided to shower upon us.
Who, Exactly, is Protecting Whom From What?
When we see an, heretofore unprecedented, opportunity for individuals to gain some level of leverage and control over financial flows, granularly, on an international scale, it is suddenly time for the arrival of a comforting “Big Daddy”, to stabilize, hand-hold and guide the wayward flock.
The advent of cryptocurrency markets has been, even by contemporary standards, quite sudden and, obviously, quite disruptive. And while Jamie Dimon, et al, would like you to think that their authoritative interjections are to protect you from yourself. Wouldn’t it be more historically accurate, and also, more adherent to basic primate psychology to consider that these persons and their accompanying institutions are, in fact, trying to protect their governmental, their institutional, personal, and in some cases "generational" interests?
It is, Indeed, a “Wild, Wild West”
Yes, it’s a boom, even “a bubble” of sorts, if you like. This is fairly obvious. I think the distinction that we frequently fail to make is, a bubble of whose design? Might we not make at least some distinction between more organic, “free market” momenta that evolve, though erratically, but with some naturalistic market force? If there can be said to be such a thing, but you know what I’m talkin’ ‘bout...and the rigorous, sequential, "manufactured" bubbles of historical financial markets?
We can certainly assert that these various international, deeply connected, financial institutions, individuals, state actors, and their respective marshaled capital have been controlling and ruthlessly manipulating these ossified markets for, literally, centuries. To, often, relatively, less than ideal overall outcomes for the mass of everyday individuals globally.
As with carpet-baggers in the antebellum south, or the sellers of sub-standard picks and hardtack biscuit to the broke-back prospectors of the California Gold Rush of the mid-nineteenth century, will there be great losses and tragic failures in such ecstatic explorations of new territories? Yes, of course there will. Will some fresh faced youth head for the hills with a miner’s pan and a soul full of hope and in fact end up a toothless dispirited drunk who dies cruelly, and alone, in a distant and sun scorched gully? Yes, of course yes.
Should we not measure though the level of all of these terrifying and unfortunate, but, really, unavoidable risks with the potential, epochal, benefit of a peer-to-peer economic under-structure that could, genuinely, help us operate in a more egalitarian 21st century? I mean, if just this curdles your milk, you can damn well forget about ever getting to Mars. Also, simply ask yourself, really, what have we got to lose?
Daddy Gets the Biggest Piece of Chicken
These ICO bans, open public denouncements of the crypto-markets, and general mass-media tomfoolery, are more about manufacturing market entry points for the “FOMO-Whales” than about saving the hard won nest eggs of itinerant fisherman and peasant farmers.
3 Former U.S. Treasury Secretaries and a Facebook Executive Laugh About Income Inequality
When has international finance ever…ever...cared about common people’s interests? The assertion is that ICOs are creating, potentially, unstable and wildly speculative markets; Oh, you mean like these?
Remember this?
Goldman Sachs - Hearing of Hank Paulson
How about this gem?
Alan Grayson: "Which Foreigners Got the Fed's $500,000,000,000?" Bernanke: "I Don't Know."
In short, I ask you, are we mistaking the flavor of the beneficent mercies of “Big Daddy”, and the warm feelings that he has for all of us? That is, again, to say, is this blatant manipulation of these markets - your, burgeoning peer-to-peer markets, that would work much more steadfastly for you, generally, and, largely, be created by your own sweat equity and intellectual property – really being evidenced because of some sense of...empathy...pathos, or genuine concern that these people have for you?
I can, obviously, be said to know far less about the cultural nuance of how the people of China, Singapore and South Korea feel about their respective officials, fat cats, and state institutions. Let us just say that...one’s intuition leads one to stray toward an atmosphere of...”similar notions”, and we’ll just leave it at that…
Stop to Consider, You Are Now, Potentially...Essentially, Your Own “Off-Shore” Bank…
It doesn’t take a great deal of imagination to envision a world in which what used to take the financial elites phalanxes of bureaucracy, mountains of political influence, tons of liquid capital (largely stolen from you, incidentally), vast shock troops of lawyers (and various, even less savory, if you can believe it, "apparatchiks"), and not a few wars, lest we forget, to achieve, can now be done from your cell phone, on a bus, in rural Kenya...Again, stop and take a moment to consider that. No Barbados, no Cayman Islands, no K-1 filings or complex trusts. Just you, and a tiny super computer, masterminding your own little...international oil bourse, or whatever it is that you do...(you...magnificently...clever...bastard!). Jamie Dimon sees this kind of potential as, "a joke"...
Some of my favorite YouTube “Crypto-Prognosticators” are ceding, as I see it, a sort of “Old-World” gentlemanly deference to these traditional powers as they drunkenly stumble through the crypto-sphere performing their, clearly actionable, tortious interference. As per this, quite common sense, reaction:
"...Meanwhile, a company called Blockswater has filed a market abuse complaint in Sweden against Dimon and JPMorgan. Blockswater claims Dimon deliberately spread false and misleading information, according to a report by City A.M. JPMorgan Chase declined to comment, the report said."
(full story) (https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/22/bitcoin-jpmorgans-jamie-dimon-lays-into-bitcoin-again.html)
Which, in its own way, is all good. Which is to say, I do respect these new “market pundits” (well, my squad anyway…) quite a bit actually. And I, largely, accept the dulcet tones of their reason; this is, for the most part, just and good in my eyes. I mean, am I seeking a world of zero-regulation, and machete fights in the streets? Well, clearly not, please see the above video references on the 2008 Financial Crisis, so, yeah...no. Let us though, not lose the power of our collective "jaundiced eye", cuz the powers that be are going to be having...
A “Whale” of a Good Time
Fat cats crush markets, especially vigorous, burgeoning markets. Then, they buy into them at bargain prices, constrain and stifle them into aggregate monopolies, over which they battle for sport with their fellow sociopaths. Why? Because they are “bad” people (hey, no judgement - that is not my department - just the realz though...), and they’ve got too much time and money and insouciant power on their hands. I mean, at that level, who really just plays golf? If you feel me…
These latest South Korean shenanigans, just seem like the creaking, crone-like, zombie fingers of international capital colluding to give even more undeserved largess to the South Korean trust fund kids who missed the early crypto-bus to school. I mean, don’t get me wrong, some of my best friends used to be South Korean trust fund kids, no offense, just sayin’ though…
Psy vs. Yellow Suit Guy...
So, in my humble opinion, you should stop giving away all of your deference and power to these loosed maniacs. On the Realz...
I mean, am I some sort of zealot? A disaffected...bitter, former lulz-sec kid, ultra-obtuse member of Anonymous, or a wizened old zealot on a downbeat street corner with a sign that reads, “The End is Near!”? No, I am none of these things. I am actually, if I may say so, a bit more...complex than that as, I suspect, are you.
So, do yourself a favor; fuck, do me a favor, and consider turning in your Stockholm Syndrome Club Membership Card.
Word...act like you know…
##JUST A QUICK ADDENDUM:
Blechhh - one more series, amongst an already vicious litany, of crimes...