Way back in 2016 when I first started out on Steemit as @sift666 because the account name "sift" was already reserved, one of the first accounts I interacted with was @jrcornel.
We were not on the same page about many things but there were no major issues and I always followed him. I'm not sure if he ever followed me or not.
I don't imagine he will be pleased about me doing this post, but in all honesty I’m past caring. I live in New Zealand which is in the process of imploding, so the fact that all my posts on Hive are downvoted to zero is small potatoes, and most of my friends here are looking at alternative platforms anyway.
He went on to be very popular on Steemit, me not so much... I ended up having quite a few accounts, partly because some were heavily flagged and in some cases basically driven off the platform. Censorship in these parts is nothing new.
Moving forward to Hive, he became quite a name on Leo Finance. Despite being a crypto investor myself, I pulled all my support for Leo Finance after the insiders there nuked the living crap out of one of my alt accounts.
So I had no issues with @jrcornel doing whatever reward pool milking he was running on Leo Finance. They fully deserved it. But eventually he got run out of town. These days he is posting on Steemit and Blurt, and could well be elsewhere, but I’m not a stalker so I don’t have a clue.
https://peakd.com/hive-167922/@edicted/jrcornel-being-flagged-to-zero
Just before he was banished from Leo Finance we disagreed on the state of the American economy. I said it was already in Recession and was heading into Depression. We had an exchange of comments here - https://peakd.com/hive-158694/@frot/is-trying-to-fail-an-effective-tactic
That was back in March 2021.
He was really keen to make it a bet of 100 Hive, to which I agreed. The bet was that by the end of the second quarter, America would be in an economic depression. He was adamant that it would not be.
Because he disappeared from Hive I forgot about the bet until he started popping up in comments demanding I pay him the 100 Hive I owe him. And implying that if I refuse it’s because I can’t afford to or am a scam artist.
With the benefit of hindsight it was a dumb bet – not because the American economy is not in a state of collapse at this point, and already clearly was by the end of June, but because nobody can agree on the exact definition of a depression...
For example, one definition is: Over 10% decline in GDP, along with around 20% unemployment, and a downturn that lasts more than 1-2 years.
By that useless “definition” we have no way to draw any conclusion until 1-2 years are up, and WTF is “around” 20% unemployment?.
All the definitions on sites like Wikipedia have now been revised and made vague and indefinable. As as almost everything this year. This meaningless “definition” is currently on Wikipedia:
In the United States, it is defined as "a significant decline in economic activity spread across the market, lasting more than a few months, normally visible in real GDP, real income, employment, industrial production, and wholesale-retail sales" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recession
What is “significant”. Personally I think his claim that America was NOT in a state of depression by the end of Q2 is wrong and that he owes me 100 Hive. But I can’t be arsed pursuing it.
We actually did define our bet at the time - it was:
"I am betting that the American economy will be in a state of DEPRESSION by July 1 2021 - Depression as in a 10% or greater decline in economic output as measured by the gross domestic product (GDP) for two consecutive quarters"
Today he sent me some links to prove his point. But the first one doesn't prove anything. In fact it doesn’t mention Q2 but says of Q1
“Growth of real gross domestic product (GDP) in the OECD area slowed to 0.3% in the first quarter of 2021, down from 1.0% in the previous quarter, according to provisional estimates. This slowdown is partly related to the strengthening of COVID-19 containment measures in some countries in early 2021.
I'm going to have to look into this more, but saying the downturn in the US economy in the first half of this year is not greater than 10% sounds like saying Biden got more votes than Trump...Sure he did...
https://www.oecd.org/newsroom/gdp-growth-first-quarter-2021-oecd.htm
What do you guys think – is there any way to define economic depression and resolve this? And are there any reliable sources of data, given that the American government is clearly totally corrupt and manipulating the official figures?
I don't live in America - how is the economy looking there? - but I can tell you this - the NZ economy is on it's knees...
I would say they are pretty depressing, but I would also give the thing their money and let them move along. I am not a fan of entertaining people beyond my boredom point. which is usually is right after "Hi" every bit longer becomes a case of overstaying and eating all the shit in my non-functioning fridge.
Lol! You remind me of my husband. I'm pretty sure he would put his boredom point in about the same place.
My opinion, pay the man .... The Banks have everything propped up, so impossible to set a date for collapse..
It's a dilema - if you had bet someone that Trump would win the last election, would you have lost yet if Biden was elected winner but it was clearly fraud and there were dozens of court cases still in motion?
What I want to see is independant figures. Do such things even exist?
The official government figures on the American GDP are clearly fake... And what we didn't agree on is whose figures we would go on.
I totally agree with you.. You can hold out till we are made into lamp shades, robots or Soylent green. Then you can surely claim your bet.
This movie reveals the future of our meat source.....
no clue. Money and brains are far and wide in me nuggin.
https://cpb-us-e1.wpmucdn.com/sites.dartmouth.edu/dist/5/2216/files/2021/10/us-fear-oct-7-final-nber.pdf
that was a lot of info!
the tricky part is that so much of what is being spread around is blatent propaganda - like this utter bollocks:
2020 was fairly bad, but 2021 is clearly much worse - strangely there are very few recent figures to be found...odd that...
Curated for #informationwar (by @aagabriel)
Delegate to the @informationwar! project and get rewarded
you should set clearer rules in the future for your bets :)
very true!
Hmmm
well that is decisive...
Holy crap - he has been hitting me up in Discord too - and I don't even use bloody Discord usually...
Stalker alert...
not creepy at all :)
Discord is fucking stupid and I have hated every moment I have ever used it.
I like reminding Americans there is a state of capitalism superior to American capitalism. When they ask who or what, I don't tell them and remind them they don't even know 1 form of alternative economic pract8se to their own, proving they are a lot more stupid than they first think.
I have to this day, to drop this psychological Warfare on an American and have them reply with anything logical, the whole lot throw a childish tempertantrum and set me up perfectly to denounce their understanding of capitalism.
BTW, since I respect you, and don't play games with your head, it's Austrian Capitalism which is superior to American capitalism, and anyone who knows that secret isn't worried about the competition...
I used to mock America but these days I live in a country more rooted than America so have run out of mock. My second most popular blog post of all time is about America!
https://www.frot.co.nz/design/wordpress/imagine-if-i-did-a-webpage-about-america-and-it-became-disgustingly-popular/