Well done. It is not easy to eat well given the junk food muck that is produced by the industrial food system.

A rock I found at the beach where we harvest mussels.

Don't know how old it is but it must be a few million years at least...although the area is volcanic so may be less?

It has strange markings on it which may be of human origin but not sure of its true story...it is shaped in a roughly adze/axe head shape.

I guess the mussels and Paua (abalone) at that beach have been harvested for many years before we found them!

Your soul may be older!?

When in Thailand I love paying with Bitcoin but so few places accept it directly. There is huge potential for this ap.

More than a grain of truth in this analysis. US debt at $36 Trillion is unsustainable. By 2030 debt servicing and core government expenditure will exceed government receipts. The tariffs seek to forestall foreclosure! The empire is facing imminent insolvency. Real Estate is highly debt leveraged and has been over leveraged since the neoliberal 'reforms' of the 1980s which removed all restraint upon commercial banks regarding the purpose to which they issue fiat debt finance. This has led to vast misuse of fiat debt funding to support non productive real estate speculation while funding of productive assets has withered...ie parasitic debt fueled crony capitalism. Trumps permissive 'crypto' stance enables the construction of virtual asset havens analogous to the shadow banking network Britains wealthy elites created as it declined. They were not thinking of the ordinary citizens but solely preserving their elite wealth.

US is sending mixed messages - seems to want to have its cake and eat it. Pushing other nations closer to China while insisting it retains USD/SWIFT trade payments hegemony and seiniorage.

Seems likely in geopol terms to push other nations closer together. Already China claims to be working with Japan and S.Korea on how to respond to the latest tariffs. Europe and China with Japan, S.Korea and the rest of S.E. Asia now have more to gain by increasing trade between themselves and US ends up isolated and irrelevant. China could further advance trade payments denominated in Yuan/mBrigde protocol and the USD loses its trade payments predominance, costing USA one of its last significant strategic advantages. 'Optimal Tariff Theory'?? Tariffs never lower prices!

Increase trade with China. Cease being militarily and monetarily tribute states to the USA. Reduce USD and US Treasury holdings and increasingly denominate trade and reserves in Euros and Yuan. China has the mBridge digital trade payments protocol and other alternatives to USD SWIFT ready and waiting.

China claims to already be working with Japan and S.Korea in its response to the tariffs. Trumps tariffs shift the interests of traditional US allies much more into alignment with China. US risks becoming increasingly isolated and China gaining considerable increased leverage and trade with the rest of the world.

The tariffs are a radical departure from conventional economic wisdom.

Combined with Trumps other actions they signal an increasingly isolationist USA completely at odds with its traditional allies and trade partners.

The tariffs confirm a USA that the rest of the world sees as increasingly deranged.

Do Libertarians support the tariffs or believe they are in any way a credible means to reverse the decline of US wealth and power?

China has already won the trade war. People are in denial about how far things have progressed while they indulged in US exceptionalist/Libertarian delusions.

What we are seeing now is the quasi-managed retreat of US hegemony...seeking to preserve as much as possible of the remnants of western civilisations legacy as Trump can.

This doco on how Britain managed their decline is relevant-

But the USA does not have the advantage that Britain enjoyed, of handing over hegemony to a friendly power... Bitcoin and 'crypto' are perhaps going to play a role roughly analogous to the British tax havens...

Marc Andreessen-

'Our Boston Dynamics SPOT robot cost $50,000. China has a similar product that looks and acts similar and is even hooked up to an LLM and it only costs $1,500.

This is all upstream from all the military applications because it's all the same supply chain. We have to confront this. Having this fragmented approach where we hate tech and then somehow think we can develop a competitive response to tech is not coherent.

We have no whole of government strategy on technology or China. Zero.

It turns out the President matters.'

The nation state and the quality of its government is a crucial factor in the wealth of nations.

Chinas politburo are mostly trained engineers who know if they do not deliver growth they will face removal- and not a quiet retirement but probable shame if not death.

Chinas state led mixed economy is delivering superior growth to the wests corrupt rentseeking parasitic crony capitalism.

The concept of ownership/property is an artificial, human construct. It goes with the man made construct of the state and the struggle for control of territory and resources that humans engage in. The struggle for control of energy and resources is as old as DNA.

I did not hear of Bitcoin until 2017- a geek friend told me about it and I was pretty much instantly fascinated and dived into it- even getting briefly interested in shitcoins but fairly swiftly coming back to Bitcoin as the only one of value.

Why was I instantly attracted to Bitcoin? Because after a life of being interested in economics, politics, business and current events I had already come to see the status quo western financial system as corrupt and needing change. The GFC led to the Occupy Wall st protests and we had them here too In NZ- which I participated in- but the feeling from that time was that peaceful protests on the streets were not going to deliver the change and accountability that was required- the bankers just sat back in their strongholds and laughed, and the law enforcement backed them.

So when Bitcoin was revealed to be an alternative, decentralised monetary system that was not controlled nor could be manipulated by any banker or government I was in. I did not expect it to grow in value the way it has but was simply happy to be able to hold my hard earned savings in a form that was directly under my control and free of rentseeking parasitic bankers and governments.

So the meme about getting Bitcoin at the price you deserve is imo a broad generalisation based on the willingness of anyone to choose an alternative to the corrupt fiat system- most people have never questioned the fiat monetary system and many who have would nevertheless stick with it because it has the stamp of authority and established power behind it.

Only buy Bitcoin if you want to be part of the peaceful revolution building an alternative monetary system to the fiat debt slavery bankers cartel that owns your government.

The ratio of debt servicing to total expenditure is probably higher than its ever been though.

Insolvency looms.

Only because it seems easier for you to attack the messenger than to respond with reason, fact and logic to the message.

I live in New Zealand and am certainly not a CCP bot or Chinese. New Zealand has practised very open trade for decades while the US has retained hugely obstructive trade stance toward us.

You use this dishonest and abusive name calling attack on me (not for the first time either) because you know you cannot debate the facts and issues in a fair and rational contest of ideas.

Your lack the confidence and ability to defend and support your ideas when they are challenged and so resort to childish untrue attacks on the messenger.

The tariff (goods and service tax(GST)) is charged on imports and NZ businesses- this in not contradictory. It simply creates a level playing field for domestic and offshore producers- retailers. For example previously aliexpress sales to NZ residents were not charged GST so they avoided the tax giving them an unfair advantage over NZ producers of similar products- now they are charged (since about 2018) and so the tax on domestic and offshore producers is equal. The US is the hypocrit as the US already charges sales taxes on imports and in fact restricts imports of multiple goods from NZ already for example dairy products which NZ produces much more efficiently than US producers can - yet the US acting as a sore loser and bully is now imposing tariff on NZ exports on top of the extensive obstruction of free trade with NZ that US already imposes. You 'dont have time for the rest of it' because you know you are wrong.

'The US’s calculation that New Zealand imposes 20% tariffs on US goods entering the country is “outside the realm of reality”, economist Brad Olsen says.

The US has imposed a 10% tariff on all New Zealand exports to the US, claiming that was a “discounted” rate as it faced 20% tariffs into New Zealand.

But that US calculation appears to include New Zealand’s 15% GST, despite the fact that it is charged on all goods and services sold in New Zealand, and despite the fact that the US has its own sales taxes.

“The inclusion of GST is simply not in keeping with what what we are discussing on tariffs,” said Olsen, chief executive at Infometrics.

“Realistically, it’s a convenient way to up the numbers, and create the feeling of greater unfairness,” he said.'

Trump is a looking like poor dishonest loser and a bully. USA set the rules of international trade and still lost the trade war. Now USA seeks to change the rules again to address its chronic trade deficits.