Odds and Ends — 2 August 2024

preparedwombat(78)

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Cryptocurrency, Investing, Money, Economy, Business, and Debt:

Bitcoin Risk-Reward Remains Compelling Even After Price Surges 100% in a Year

Long-term holders are motivated to hold at bitcoin's going market rate, implying an attractive risk-reward for existing or potential investors, according to the "reserve risk" indicator.

Job Growth Much Less Than Expected Last Month

Job growth in the U.S. slowed much more than expected during July and the unemployment rate ticked higher.

How to become a global citizen, with or without crypto — Nomad Capitalist

Coronavirus News, Analysis, and Opinion:

People who had severe covid-19 show cognitive decline years later

Politics:

Trump’s Racist Attack on Harris Was No Accident

How much clearer does it have to get? America, you are being trolled.
The point here is simple: Trump’s efforts, over the past twenty-four hours, to shift the political debate to his own untrue and offensive assertions about the Vice-President’s race may well be a political disaster, but they are not an accident, a flub, or an undisciplined lapse. This, in 2024, is as absurd as subscribing to the credulous spin that Trump’s near-death encounter with a would-be assassin’s bullet had remade him into a unity candidate for the ages. Even Trump couldn’t help mocking this ridiculous line from his advisers…
Trump is Trump is Trump. The Harris attacks represent a textbook example of his approach to politics, combining his belief in the strategic power of race-baiting to mobilize his base and his favorite tactic for disrupting a bad news cycle: changing the subject to something even more outrageous. Every minute spent debating Harris’s race—or his own folly in raising it—is a minute not spent on Trump’s own failings: on his advanced age and manifest unfitness for the Presidency; on his legal liabilities and criminal conviction; on his kooky Vice-Presidential nominee and his party’s extreme right-wing agenda.

https://twitter.com/mmpadellan/status/1819051494072590740
- mmpadellan

https://twitter.com/WalshFreedom/status/1819158469435326537
- WalshFreedom

U.S. Recognizes Maduro’s Rival as Winner in Venezuela

The United States on Thursday night recognized Venezuela’s opposition presidential candidate, Edmundo González, as the winner of the country’s disputed presidential election.
The announcement, by Secretary of State Antony Blinken, comes despite a claim by the country’s authoritarian president, Nicolás Maduro, and by the government-controlled electoral body, that Mr. Maduro won the vote.

https://twitter.com/lawindsor/status/1819064904818524287
- lawindsor

https://twitter.com/mattmfm/status/1819044093458063612
- mattmfm

Trump’s Worst Day?

Surely, Donald Trump has had worse days than yesterday. But off-hand, I can’t think of many performances ghastlier than Wednesday’s episode of Fat Elvis Does Birtherism.
For the moment, let’s leave aside the horse-race analysis, and the rank punditry about Trump’s three-dimensional chess strategy. What we saw yesterday was a pathetic old racist trying to replay his greatest hits.
Trump launched his presidential bid by pushing the Obama Birtherism hoax; and he thinks that playing the race cards will work again. Even his post-debacle campaign statement made it clear that he wants to relitigate some of most incendiary comments from 2015. But back then, his comments were shocking; now they just feel…. weird. Even his most reliable turd-polishers recognized that he had crapped the bed.

https://twitter.com/AoDespair/status/1818868732631933108
- AoDespair

Election Deniers Are Ramping Up Efforts to Disenfranchise Voters

After working for months to challenge thousands of voter registrations, election denial groups are now pushing ahead with plans to challenge voters and votes ahead of the election.

https://twitter.com/AfterDinnerCon/status/1816166863078043931
- AfterDinnerCon

It Sure Seems as if Vladimir Putin Is Recalculating the U.S. Elections

https://twitter.com/CBoTheEggman/status/1818475833570324811
- CBoTheEggman

Trump Is Scared of Kamala Harris

While the whole New Trump thing is way overstated, it’s been a very long time since he has imploded in public like he did yesterday. Trump lost his shit for one reason — he’s scared of Kamala Harris.
We have seen this countless times over the years. The more afraid and anxious Trump gets, the more he spirals out of control. Two weeks ago, he believed he was cruising to a landslide victory over Joe Biden. The Republican Convention was a preemptive coronation with a figurative ‘Mission Accomplished’ banner hanging about the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee.
But then Biden dropped out.

https://twitter.com/PeteButtigieg/status/1818990555436597591
- PeteButtigieg

Inside Ziklag, the Secret Organization of Wealthy Christians Trying to Sway the Election and Change the Country

https://twitter.com/davetroy/status/1818977877758795948
- davetroy

Senate Blocks Bipartisan Tax Deal

https://twitter.com/ChristopherJM/status/1818914491830047163
- ChristopherJM

The Presidential Election Is a Toss Up

At FiveThirtyEight, we actually had a formal definition of a ‘toss-up’, which is an election where each candidate had at least a 40 percent chance of winning. We’re now quite comfortably into that territory. As of this afternoon’s model run, Harris’s odds had improved to 44.6 percent, as compared to 54.9 percent for Trump and a 0.5 percent chance of an Electoral College deadlock.
It’s not exactly 50/50, but close enough that a poker player would call it a ‘flip’: Democrats have ace-king suited, and Republicans have pocket jacks.

In heads-up holdem, the actual win percentages would be slightly less than 46% for AKs and slightly less than 54% for JJ. With a small chance for a tie.