The Edge of Torture
Banking is a delicate game. It is very much like torturing a hostage for information, punish too much and the person dies and becomes useless, don't punish enough and not enough gains are made.
Most seem to now be getting ready for a reversal of fortunes in terms of interest rate hikes for 2024. This means the central banks have forced the extraction of enough wealth from normal people that now it is time to get a bullrun going, so that they can use that wealth to generate more wealth, before dumping on the market again.
For the people who have managed to hold some assets that will appreciate in a bullrun, all is well. For those who were forced or chose to sell in order to maintain lifestyle, they are going to get punished. And, a lot of people are impatient, so they have likely been bleeding the last couple years, a bit here, a bit there, because it wasn't that much.
"Not that much" is relative.
Yes, as mentioned often enough before, it is relative based on localized conditions, where a hundred dollars in one place doesn't buy a decent dinner, and in another it buys a month worth of food. But, it is also relative based on when the asset is sold. For instance, selling a 100 HIVE for 25-35 dollars might not seem a lot, but if HIVE hits an ATH again, that will be worth 350 dollars.
Again, whether that is a lot or not, is going to depend on many factors, the main being how much HIVE one owns. If 100 is 10% of the stack, it is a huge amount of the value, but if it is 1 or 0.1% of the stack, it is not so much relatively. And, for a few people here, it is 0.001 or less of their HIVE stack. 350 dollars out of 3.5M isn't a great deal of money. For some, it is just a day worth of salary, for others it is a month or two.
One of the things that people don't consider is that regardless of the economic conditions, the economic players are always trying to make money. Businesses need money to run their operations. Governments need money to run their scams too. This means that regardless of whether people are finding it hard to make ends meet and feed themselves, monetary extractors are going to keep doing what they do, because that is what they are designed to do. Companies, nor governments have the best interest of individuals in mind, they are just looking to keep perpetuating their lifespan.
They are successful at it.
So, it is worth thinking about this process in terms of personal spending, because while we think we are making the decisions at our own accord, we should realize that all the stakeholders who benefit from us spending, are doing their best to pry as much money out of our hands as possible. And, when times are hard, they realize that these small amounts that they are squeezing out will be supercharged in value when times are plenty.
Crypto people generally get this, as they have seen their shitcoins go hundreds and thousands of percent up in value at certain times. Buying a hundred worth and seeing it hit 10,000 worth a couple years later, is incredible. And similarly, most of us have had the experience of selling something that later increased astronomically, so we lament our decisions.
Too many times... If only I had.
Regrets? Sure. We all have them, despite the people who believe they don't. In the darkness when no one is around and the thought of what could have been comes to mind, it is hard to not feel that pang of regret, isn't it?
A moment ago, I did something that I haven't done in seven years or so, I logged onto my lottery account. I had forgotten I even had it there, but was reminded by a passing article I saw and thought I would check if there was anything in the wallet.
2 dollars.
That isn't worth the hassle trying to transfer it back into my bank account, so I looked to see what I could get with it. There was only one game to play that was 2 dollars, so I put in an entry.
Tomorrow evening, I might be €78,000,000 richer. This would bring my wealth to about, €78,002,000. For numbers that have no value alone - those zeroes matter.
It is funny, because we talk about how lottery winners often end up with nothing in their bank and worse off than before winning a few years later, but are we any better? Those winners make a lot of mistakes because they don't have the financial hygiene to deal with that kind of money. However, the majority of us are in the same position that they came from, which means we likely don't have good financial habits either. And, since we aren't likely to win the lottery (even if entering regularly), you'd think that we would spend more time learning how to improve the impact of the little we do have.
Yet, we don't.
We are as easy targets as the lottery winner with no financial knowledge, it is just that the amounts extracted out of us are smaller. But, instead of one person losing a lot of money, it is millions of people losing an obscene amount of money. but because each individual is just losing a little, it goes unnoticed, while we bleed to death slowly.
The torture continues.
As long as we don't die too soon.
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]
I am a big fan of financial education, and quite a few people who learned the basics from me are quite well now (3) while others, despite knowing, never learn. So, my advice is not given to just anyone, just to the ones that ask for it, and even for them, I have a little test. I tell them that to be successful, they need savings equal to 6 months of their monthly expenses. Only then they are ready to start to save and invest.
But this is me. Others may be more open to sharing.
I think that is a good approach. All the knowledge in the world is useless, if even the simplest parts of it can't be applied.
In my country, when there is more financial crisis, gambling and witchcraft places proliferate. I think it is part of the Latin American culture that believes with faith that we will get out of poverty without any effort. Likewise, I have heard that someone who plays the lottery has a higher probability of becoming a millionaire, overnight, than someone who does not play. I hope that for next year the crypto horizon will be brighter and brighter and that we will be able to reap all that we have sown. Have a nice evening, my friend.
Witchcraft? I would like to hear more about this!
If I win, I might become a witch :D
I have a feeling there are just as many winners that do alright. You just don't hear about them because it isn't as exciting or juicy to celebrate success. We also know that saving money isn't really considered the cool thing to do these days ... Even though it really is.
Yes. Same with NBA players. However, I am pretty sure that if you or I won 10M or something like that - we wouldn't ever have to work again.
No, not at all. I'd be living off the interest.
Oh! Slightly different case, but I as thinking about writing a post about this just this morning!
Yesterday was the last day you could purchase a number in the Spanish Christmas Lottery which runs December 22nd every year. Millions of euros are paid by thousands of people expecting to get one of the prizes. Then, today, all TV channels play the same news, happy people celebrating they were "lucky" to get a chunk of the prize pie.
I receive some participation as a present as many shops and businesses purchase one of the tickets and give away small amounts to their customers. Some relatives also give tickets as Christmas presents, but I never directly purchase them.
For many years, prizes were tax-free, as you purchase with money (from salaries) it has been already taxed, plus, VAT is paid when you purchase, but several years ago the government decided to also tax the prizes if you are one of the lucky ones. I wonder when will a company or citizen decide to sue the government for that, it is pretty clear they will win the battle. Governments, and their "workers" make mistakes, directly stealing money from the people with their ruling, yet, the politicians may get punished but never the company they belong to (the governing party). We are starting to witness a change of power between some of the players (governments, big banking, consumers), and I hope 2024 brings more of that power change.
This is actually kind of cool, isn't it?
I am not expecting to win of course.
I am hoping that people are feeling enough financial pain, coupled with enough financial knowledge, that they can realize there is a better way than the governance structures we currently use.
It is nice cause whenever they get a prize (the retailer) it has been spread in a bunch of smaller prizes among its customers.
I regret not selling when I am in profit, then buy at lower price. The more I waited the more they went down. This no doubt happens so :)
Exactly. Even if I had sold 10%, I would have doubled my stack.
Yesterday I sold part of HIVE and bought HBD. I staked HBD, 20% is a good bet. I don't see the strength of the bull market: if Bitcoin falls in January, HIVE will be worth much less than it is now.
I am looking longer than January, since I don't day trade like you :)
With part of my capital in HIVE, I also look at the long term. But I have already started committing HIVE to HBD. Hopefully we'll get some more growth before we end up in a bear market again.
I am also about to do a big gamble. I am powering down 100=200 dollars worth of hive hive to rent some summoners in splinterlands. which ones would you suggest? I thought about BYZANTINE KITTY or VALNAMOR but they are quite expensive. (@shawnnft already recommended Immortalis) My best decks are death, water and earth.
are u buying or renting o.o i dont think u need 100 dollars to rent?
renting. I intended to rent for 180 days but I might rent for not so long.
o.o thats crazy i think its better to buy cards than to rent i think?
Buying would be ideal. At first I thought about buying but then I could only afford to buy a few cards. MIMOSA NIGHTSHADE 2 cards would already cost 28...
slowly buy dont rush it. not like ull buy all at once/?
you are probably right
well its what i do :3 no pressur ejust slow and steady
do you think that LILY SHIELDPAW would be any good?
YES lily shieldpaw is good but it needs certain lineups. its good if u have strong tank with immune infront and have some backline support and heals that make it unkillable lol. its super annoying in diamond with grimbarudn smith. cant cripple ... it or poision or afflciton
I have no idea. You are playing Wild it seems. Immortalis is useful for a few things, such as magic only and to kill pesky big shields.
I think there was a study that shows torture doesn't really work. Some give away false information or the information that the one doing the torture wants just to make the process stop. The study could also be false and just wants the inhumane practice of torture to stop.
For the financial aspect though, I do hope this torturous bear market will end soon. I don't have as much assets as I would like, but it would definitely help me financially. I am frugal and stingy, so even if my assets appreciate astronomically, I would probably reinvest a lot of them to gain passive income.
Perhaps it works as a warning to others :D
I suspect that torture likely works well enough to keep doing it. Inhumane or not, those in control want to stay in control. A lot of government practices are inhumane too, but just at a different scale and applied en masse.
One or two cycles of this and everything looks different, right?
It's hard but that is one of the tough things for the less financially off people. The reason why most of the rich got off well during a bear market was that they didn't need to sell. It's all about building enough of a buffer so those times don't force you to sell as much.
Precisely. A lot of people dip into crypto/ assets when things are bad, when they should be using them to solidify when things are good, so they don't have to dip in the bad.
One thing that just hurts is that some people are seen as lazy in the aspect that they were not able to save any valuable for the bull run but truly, they are not even earning an amount of money that is enough for them not to talk of saving some for the bull run
I am in both boats. I am accumulating one asset Hive every day meanwhile all my holding of ethereum based stocks are getting sold to pay random bills and healthcare things. It may take time but hoping that I may at some point balance this massive leak of paying for stuff using crypto. I want to reach position where I am stacking crypto only for profit and not to pay off debt and card bills. Hive hopefully would come in rescue at some point in near future.
I have never bought a lottery ticket, except when it was for a charity.
For me, buying a lottery ticket is gambling. I think that most of the lottery winners are gamblers. So, it is not surprising that they don't know how to manage their wealth.
I have visited Las Vegas with my eldest brother Philippe, but we did not gamble at all.
There was a small casino not far from where was living 20 years ago. For a long time, I did not go there as I was afraid I might be addicted if I started to gamble.
One day, I decided to test if I could have enough discipline to follow this plan:
I was able to follow this plan for 14 Sundays. On the last Sunday, I lost $1200. But in total, I did not lose any money, as I earned $100 for 13 Sundays.
Since then, I have never gone to a casino.
I'm planning on collecting those daily rewards long into the future. Show my nephews how we craft and cast spells from land. Toes crossed on this one!
I took some altcoin profits on the way up and doubled down on some others. Still finding it hard to put more skin in the game when I haven't finished my Rebellion set though.
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STOPor to resume write a wordSTARTWow, just imagine if one day we realize that the whole world economy is like cryptocurrency with bullruns and bear markets, and the rich have been playing the game and manipulating the markets in a cyclical fashion forever to get rich.
Now that sounds like one of those conspiracy theories we later find out is true.
LOL.
Financial Hygene, is a new term for me, but I like it.
My outside voice likes it also.
Instead of telling people to improve their messy financial situation, I can now tell them to improve their financial hygene.
It impleues that some financial mistakes or situations are messy, which they are,
And some peoples finances are a mess, which they are,
But others finances are neat and tidy, because they cleaned them up.
Cool.
LOL do people still say that?
I guess the only thing that really matters is that I still say it, and I think you understand it.
So...cool.