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, , and other cryptocurrencies made a substantial comeback from their lows following the steep correction that occurred after the April and May peaks. Bitcoin dropped from $65,520 on Apr. 14 to a low of $28,800 in late June or over 56%. Ethereum reached its peak at $4,406.50 in mid-May and fell to a low of $1697.75 in late June, a decline of nearly 61.5%.

The market cap of the entire asset class of over 11,180 digital tokens more than halved from around the $2.5 trillion level.

While prices plunged, the speculative frenzy in the cryptocurrency asset class continues to attract new participants each day. On Sunday, Aug. 8, Bitcoin was back above the $43,800 level, with Ethereum at just over $3000 per token. The market cap for the entire class was nearly $1.775 trillion.

Stories of incredible wealth creation from those with the foresight to turn a $1 investment in Bitcoin at five cents in 2010 into over $2 million is a powerful catalyst. Moreover, technology companies continue to embrace the libertarian form of money, with Squares (NYSE:) Jack Dorsey leading the way.

At the , the CEO of both SQ and Twitter (NYSE:) called cryptocurrency the internets form of money. As more businesses begin accepting tokens for payment, governments are not likely to stand by idly.

Governments have repeatedly challenged cryptos because of their nefarious uses. However, it is control of the money supply that is at the root of their concerns.

Control of the purse strings is the most significant factor in retaining power. Surrendering the money supply to any libertarian currency diminishes control.

The status quo means governments can expand or contract the money supply with the push of a button. The ideological divide between governments and a form of money that transcends borders creates a vast gulf.

Governments embrace Blockchain as it represents the technological evolution of finance. The speed and efficiency of fintech have broad appeal. However, the digital currencies themselves pose a massive threat to power.

China appears to be the first government to issue a digital form of its currency, the yuan. In preparation, the Chinese have cracked down on Bitcoin and other cryptos. It will not be long before the US and Europe roll out digital dollars and euro. Washington DC and the EU are more than likely to follow Chinas lead to retain control of the money supply and hold onto financial power.

Post-2008, in the aftermath of the financial markets crash, the stage was set for cross-border regulatory cooperation. Given the move towards globalism under the Biden administration, we are likely to see regulators in the US, UK, and EU work together to establish a framework for cryptocurrency regulation.

While they will present this as a regulatory environment to protect investors, traders, and the sanctity of money, the underlying factor will be control and maintenance of the monetary status quo.

I expect that fintech will bifurcate into two regulatory protocols. One will cover government-issued digital currencies and could include so-called stablecoins that reflect hard asset values.

These are likely to be the blue chips that will face a more lenient regulatory landscape as control will continue to come from governments, treasuries, central banks, and monetary authorities.

Cryptocurrencies, on the other hand, could face far more regulatory hurdles to mitigate their threat to established power bases.

One of the most potent tools governments have at their disposal is taxation. A sign that cryptocurrencies are already in the US governments crosshairs are two competing crypto tax amendments in the Senates infrastructure legislation. The taxation comes down to defining the role of a broker in cryptocurrencies.

Ironically, Senators initially looked to impose stricter rules on taxing cryptocurrencies to help fund the infrastructure bill. The Wyden-Toomey-Lummis amendment would narrow the broker definition to exclude miners and validators, hardware and software makers, and protocol developers from the designation. The amendment would seek to keep the crypto business and market from moving overseas to less restrictive jurisdictions.

Meanwhile, the Portman-Warner-Sinema amendment would only protect proof of work (PoW) miners from the newly proposed reporting requirement. The amendment would not make proof of stake (PoS) developers, operators, validators, or liquidity providers from the reporting requirements.

The bottom line: strict taxation is on the horizon in some form. Taxation is the most significant device governments can use to maintain a grip on the asset class and exert control.

Under the umbrella of paying for infrastructure, the IRS and other government agencies would have the power to control money flows with complete transparency. Moreover, cross-border cooperation could be a silver bullet that drives the market away from cryptos toward government-issued digital currencies and stable coins that reflect the value of regulated assets.

Libertarian ideology shifts power from the state to individuals. Libertarians believe in free markets where prices come from transparent transactions without government interference. Ironically, many believe that libertarianism is a right-wing doctrine.

When it comes to money, it decreases the governments role. However, socially, libertarianism can also appeal to the political left. Right and left political ideologies embrace different forms of libertarianism.

When it comes to cryptocurrencies, neither the government nor proponents of the burgeoning asset class will be pleased with the outcome. In the US and Europe, the growth of technology companies that have created oligarchies sets the stage for an epic battle over the future of the money supply.

Government officials are on one side, with Jack Dorsey, Tesla's (NASDAQ:) Elon Musk, Amazon's (NASDAQ:) Jeff Bezos, and other titans embracing a fintech world that transcends government control on the other.

Both sides have vested interests. The governments will do anything to preserve their hold on power. The crypto market and technology companies seek to return power to individuals, but they stand to be financial benefactors.

The bottom line: regulations are on the horizon, and they are likely to create a class system where digital currencies and stablecoins are not subject to the same treatment as cryptos.

Two competing payment systems could become mutually exclusive, creating lots of volatility and an epic financial battle for control. Governments may have the right to taxation, regulations, and armies of agents at their disposal. However, the technology sector has know-how and skills that dwarf the capabilities of those looking to maintain the status quo.

Speculative interest is currently fueling the libertarian asset class, which is why Chinese regulators have put their foot down. China is an authoritarian system, making it easy to suppress anything that is not in the governments interest.

Expect the US and Europe to try to do the same. However, in social democracies, that task is far from easy.

Source: CQG

The monthly chart of , above, shows that the speculative frenzy is likely to continue. Nearly 11,200 cryptocurrencieswith more coming to the market each dayis another sign that the asset class has rising appeal. Moreover, the existence of Bitcoin and means the cat is already out of the bag, and the US and Europe will now seek to tax and regulate from a weakened position.

Many agree that Blockchain is the future of the payments system. However, the form of money is an issue that will continue to stoke controversy for years to come.

Continued here:
Cryptocurrency Regulations On The Horizon; Expect 2 Sets Of Protocols - Investing.com

Mandates for the COVID-19 shots are popping up all over the country now, which means you may soon have to show proof of vaccination if you want to go to work, the gym or an indoor public event.

The requirements are a reaction to slowed vaccination rates that have left significant parts of the population without protection from the virus, just as the highly contagious delta variant is spreading. Among those supporting the new requirements is President Joe Biden, who has issued one for federal workers and encouraged both private and public employers to do the same.

The requirements seem to be relatively popular. As many as two-thirds of Americans support them, if some recent polling is correct. But there are plenty of opponents out there. Among the loudest are some high-profile leaders in the Republican Party.

Sen. Ted Cruz (Texas) says vaccine requirements are products of the lefts authoritarian instincts. Sen. Rand Paul (Ky.) describes the push for requirements as vaccine fascism. House Republican Conference Chair Elise Stefanik (N.Y.) responded to Bidens announcement by tweeting, No mandates for anyone, and vowing that Americans will stand for freedom and then punctuating the line with an American flag emoji.

Republicans at the state level are saying similar things and they are acting too, putting in place prohibitions on vaccine requirements in more than a dozen states. One of them is Florida, where Gov. Ron DeSantis has issued orders and signed legislation thatbansvaccine requirements by private companies as well as local government agencies.

Florida is a free state, and we will empower our people, DeSantis said in a fundraising letter this week. We will not allow Joe Biden and his bureaucratic flunkies to come in and commandeer the rights and freedoms of Floridians.

The virtual flag-waving, appeals to personal liberty, and warnings about fascism suggest there is something fundamentally un-American about vaccine mandates.But requirements to get inoculations have been around since the very first days of the republic, claiming broad support and withstanding legal challenges.

This isnt because officials or judges are ignoring freedom. Its because they believe vaccination is a key to securing it.In fact, among those who support vaccine requirements today are some well-known conservative judges and libertarian scholars in other words, precisely the sort of people you would expect to protest government overreach most vociferously.

What Liberals And Conservatives Say About Vaccine Mandates

A basic justification for vaccine mandates is that your freedom doesnt include the freedom to endanger the rest of your community.The principle is a bedrock of democratic philosophy and the American legal tradition, with courts applying it to a variety of contexts including public health.

You cant walk around assaulting people just because you feel like its an important part of your self-expression, Nicholas Bagley, a University of Michigan law professor, said in an interview. And you cant dump pollutants into a towns drinking water just because youd rather not pay for cleanup. By the same token, we require kids to get vaccinated for all sorts of illnesses before they go to public school. Otherwise, their bodies could be used as vectors to harm others.

SOPA Images via Getty ImagesFlorida Gov. Ron DeSantis, whose state's hospitals are filling up with COVID-19 patients, has said that vaccination requirements threaten freedom.

The most important legal precedent on vaccines specifically is a 1905 case called Jacobson v. Massachusetts, in which the Supreme Court upheld a state law requiring smallpox vaccination for adults. Just this week, a panel from a federal appeals court cited Jacobson when it upheld, unanimously, a new COVID-19 vaccine requirement for students at Indiana University.

The author of that ruling, Frank Easterbrook, is a well-respected conservative first put on the bench by President Ronald Reagan. In the opinion, Easterbrook argued that the Indiana University requirement was actually less onerous than the old Massachusetts requirement, because it applied only to people who are choosing to enroll at the university.

People who do not want to be vaccinated may go elsewhere, Easterbrook wrote.

That appears to be true for all of the vaccine mandates now in place or under discussion: They are not requirements per se, but rather conditions for some kind of voluntary activity. Although the consequences can still be harsh say, if it means giving up a job many of the mandates, including the one Biden introduced for federal workers, offer alternatives like undergoing frequent testing plus a promise to observe social distancing.

Thats in addition to exceptions for people who can cite legitimate religious grounds or who cant get shots for medical reasons.

In the eyes of the law, nothing under discussion is actually a mandate, in the sense of a government command backed up by coercion, Bagley said.

What Some Libertarians Say About Vaccine Mandates

Bagley is generally thought of as a liberal, but its not hard to find conservatives and libertarians who take the same view.

In a 2013 paper titled A Defense of Compulsory Vaccination, Jessica Flanigan, a University of Richmond professor known for libertarian writings on bioethics, cited the example of people firing guns into the air in order to celebrate Independence Day. Governments can and do prohibit such behavior even though its a form of expression, Flanigan explained, because the bullet could end up hitting and even killing somebody.

People are not entitled to harm innocents or to impose deadly risks on others, Flanigan wrote.

Georgetown University professor Jason Brennan made a similar argument in a 2018 journal article called A Libertarian Case for Mandatory Vaccination. That was two years before COVID-19, but, he told HuffPost last week, he thinks the case for mandates now remains strong.

Bill Clark via Getty ImagesElise Stefanik, the House Republican Conference chair from New York, punctuated her tweets on vaccine mandates with an American flag emoji.

In my view, people have the right to harm themselves by making bad choices, Brennan said. This is about protecting others from the undue risk of harm you impose upon them by being unvaccinated. The lower the personal costs/risks of the vaccine and the higher the risk that the unvaccinated impose upon others the stronger the case is for mandating vaccines.

And then there is Ilya Somin, whom nobody would mistake for a fan of government power.

A professor at George Mason University and an adjunct scholar at the libertarian Cato Institute, he has spent much of his professional life decrying what he sees as state encroachments on personal liberty, whether its local authorities taking property under eminent domain or the federal governmentpenalizing people for not getting health insurance.

But Somin said in an interview that vaccine mandates make sense under certain circumstances and that the present situation qualifies. He described taking the shot as a small burden for the sake of much larger benefits, like slowing transmission and reducing the opportunities for new, more dangerous variants to emerge.

The issue here is not just that it saves lives, but that it potentially saves a great many of them, and not just those of the vaccinated people themselves, Somin said. It also protects others in the community. That makes it different from primarily paternalistic restrictions on liberty, such as, say, requiring motorcycle riders to wear helmets.

Somin said said he would feel differently about imposing a requirement on the public at large, rather than making the vaccines a condition for engaging in certain activities, in part because it would be a law enforcement nightmare. Somin also noted that many of the mandates are coming from private-sector companies acting on their own.

American laws and courts have long given private companies all kinds of leeway to dictate terms of employment, as well as whom they serve as customers. Libertarians like Somin are especially reluctant to see that erode, because they believe owners, workers and consumers end up better off when corporations operate with fewer restrictions.

Where The Debate Goes From Here

One group that would be happy to cut down on management discretion over employees are labor unions, and thats a big reason so many unions representing teachers, health care workers and other sectors subject to the mandates have been fighting them.

The unions are also representing workers who, in many cases, are genuinely fearful of the vaccines. This is especially true for the health care unions whose memberships include large numbers of Black Americans, whose vaccination numbers nationwide have lagged in part because of deep distrust of the medical establishment that has built up over the centuries.

Of course, from a public health perspective, thats all the more reason to impose the mandate: to boost vaccination among people who take the pandemic seriously and are part of communities that have suffered disproportionately from COVID-19. And thats not to mention the biggest reason, which is that unvaccinated health care workers are a direct threat to the safety and well-being of patients.

Still, many of the unions fighting the requirements are focusing more on the specifics of verification and exceptions to the rules.Thats different from the categorical rejection of mandates you hear from Cruz, DeSantis and the other Republicans. And although the unions certainly represent a lot of members, those GOP officials have a lot of influence especially when it comes to the part of the population most hostile to getting vaccinated.

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Opponents Of COVID-19 Vaccine Mandates Have A Curious Definition Of 'Freedom' - HuffPost

FILE PHOTO: REUTERS/Dado Ruvic

By David M. GreenwaldExecutive Editor

Since the start of the pandemic, issues of government and health based restrictions have been framed by thoseespecially on the right, though not exclusivelyas an issue of freedom and rights. The argument goes that the individual and not the government should determine issues like masking, social distancing, and the like.

That issue has been amplified severalfold with the issue of vaccinations and whether or to what extent government and/or employers can mandate them.

In this piece I will argue that, while there are issues of freedom and rights embedded into this debate, for the most part and this extends well beyond the realm of COVID, we have misconstrued the issue of freedom way too narrowly.

When people yell freedom in this society, most often they are thinking along narrow self-interested lines. I want the freedom to do what I want.

The problem is that the government cannot operate along those lines of freedom. The government generally thinks not in terms of freedom but in terms of rights. Allowing someone to exercise their rights is relatively straightforward. Where government exists, however, is at the point where rights conflictgovernment has a responsibility to arbitrate and weigh on situations where my rights conflict with yours.

Many people yelling freedom forget this fact. The government has the obligation in my view of not only arbitration in the conflict of rights, but ensuring that the laws, to the extent possible, offer equal protection.

We may often think of freedom versus safetythe but reality is that safety is another way of designating other peoples rights. You may have the right to run down the street. But when you run into the street, you are putting other peoples rights in jeopardynot only their freedom of movement but also their freedom to live.

So the government preemptively steps in to create a set of rules that we follow. So we have traffic laws that prescribe and proscribe movements and govern when and where pedestrians can cross roadways and which laws that drivers have to obey to create as safe of an environment as possible.

What determines those laws? In part, community standards. But in part, a risk assessment.

Let us use speed limit as a case example here. In most places there are laws governing the maximum speed. Those laws generally allow people to drive at a faster rate of speed on the open road than on narrow and crowded city streets where there are more likely to be pedestrians and traffic controls.

Speed limits are limits on freedom. Thats one way to look at it. But another way is it is the governments decision to arbitrate between competing rights. My freedom of movement is circumscribed by your need to be able to safely move from point A to point B.

How does the government determine speed limits? A lot of it is based on risk assessment. The faster you go, the more freedom you have to determine your own safe rate of speed. But we know from studies, the faster you go the more likely driver error or roadway conditions are to create hazards, and so we weigh freedom against risk and arrive at a somewhat subjective limit for upper speed. That can vary state to state and also by location, but at the end of the day, risk assessment guides it.

In general, in the non-economic realm, I tend to be more libertarian. In fact, I generally consider myself a civil libertarian. I oppose government limits on free speech, think that most drugs should be legalized and, if not, decriminalized. I think things like sex work should be legalized but regulated.

I am more libertarian on things like gun laws than many on the left.

But I have a hard time understanding the freedom dimension to reasonable regulations with regard to COVID.

The problem again with COVID is that regulations are not about individual liberty exclusively. For example, if COVID were such that the precautions only impacted your own healththen by all means take whatever risks you want.

Let us take smoking as a good example here. If someone wants to smoke, that puts their health at risk. I am fine with that (we can debate the extent to which society should have to pay the bill for cancer treatment or the extent to which it is fair that we have to pay higher health insurance premiums to mitigate that risk, but thats a slightly different question).

But most places determined that you may have the right to smoke by yourself outside, but smoking can also impact others. Second hand smoke poses a health risk, and so most indoor places in most states have now forbidden ityou used to be able to smoke on planes, in restaurants, at bars, now you cant.

Wearing a mask is pretty much the same issue. When you dont wear a mask, you actually put other peoples health at risk, not your own.

Government therefore has a compelling interest in mandating masks to prevent disease spread.

I have heard people argue that if you want to live in fear, thats fine, but they dont choose to. But the mask issue is more complicated. If it again were merely about you avoiding getting sick if you didnt wear a mask, there would be a more compelling argument. But the mask issue is actually the opposite, it prevents you from spreading the virus to others. Thats a little different.

Vaccination, of course, is more complicated. You are not talking about a temporary and passive use of masks. You are talking about whether the government has an interest to compel an individual to inject something into their body.

I would argue that they dont.

However, freedom to act is not freedom to live without consequences or choices.

The government in my view, does have a compelling interest in regulating who can operate in the public realm and create increased levels of risk. Therefore the government I think has the ability to regulate who can enter public buildings, it has the ability to regulate who can go to restaurants, bars, and gyms, and it has the ability to weigh your freedom to not vaccinate against societys freedom to incur undo risk at entering the public realm.

Bottom line, I think the government does have the right to place restrictions on those who CHOOSE not to vaccinate. They are making a choice.

I have seen people say that they can choose not to wear a mask or not vaccinate and if I dont like it, I can choose not to leave my home.

Sorry, but we both have equal freedoms here. Our rights conflict. And there when rights conflict, the government has the duty to arbitrate those conflicts and they do so by managing risk. Right now in the middle of a pandemic, the government interest in protecting health and safety outweighs other factors.

When that risk is reducedas we have seen at various timesgovernment can and will remove those restrictions.

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Commentary: We Have Misconstrued Freedom in the Fight against COVID - The Peoples Vanguard of Davis

Former San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer's campaign is in a dispute with state officials over whether he can be listed as the city's retired mayor on the ballot for the recall election of Gov. Gavin Newsom.

Each candidate is listed with a job title or other descriptor, but they are not allowed to use the word former. Faulconer's campaign requested he be listed as San Diego's retired mayor, which state officials are now disputing, Faulconer spokesman John Burke said. He left the office in 2020, and referencing his prior role would help boost his name identification.

Burke said the campaign plans to sue the Secretary of State's office.

"It defies common sense that KevinFaulconerwouldnt be allowed to use retired San Diego Mayor as his ballot designation, where he was elected and re-elected, leaving office only at the end of last year," Burke said in a written statement. "This is not fair to voters who should be given accurate information as to who the candidates for this recall actually are. Our campaign is suing the Secretary of State to ensure that this is rectified."

Faulconer isn't the only candidate upset with the list of 41 candidates released Saturday by the state. YouTube creator Kevin Paffrath said he planned to sue to get his YouTube nickname on the ballot.

And, conservative talk radio host Larry Elder was left off the ballot because state officials say he submitted incomplete tax returns, a requirement to run. Elder maintains he should be included and says he'll go to court to get his name on the ballot.

The list of candidates includes 21 Republicans and eight Democrats, one Libertarian, nine independents and two Green Party members. The list has a range of candidates from the anonymous to the famous, including an entertainer known for putting herself on Los Angeles billboards in the 1980s and others with eye-catching names, like deputy sheriff Denver Stoner, and Nickolas Wildstar, who lists himself as a musician/entrepreneur/father.

Also listed is Olympian-turned-reality-TV-star Caitlyn Jenner, who was reportedly in Australia filming a reality show at the time the list was released, though she tweeted Friday that she and her campaign team are "in full operation."

Voters will be sent a ballot with two questions: Should Newsom be recalled, and who should replace him. If more than half of voters say yes to the first question, then whoever on the list of potential replacements gets the most votes is the new governor of the nations most populous state. With numerous candidates and no clear front-runner, its possible the someone could win with less than 25% of the votes.

Ballots will start going out next month in the mail, and the official election date is Sept. 14.

Read the original here:
Faulconer Campaign in Dispute With State Over Title on Recall Ballot - NBC San Diego

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Californias next governor could be a retired homicide detective, a marijuana reform advocate, or an Olympic champion.

Or, a former Mayor of San Francisco who went on to win the Governor's office a few years ago.

The state on Saturday released a list of 41 people who filed the required paperwork to run in the Sept. 14 recall election that could remove Gov. Gavin Newsom. The lineup includes 21 Republicans, eight Democrats, one Libertarian, nine independents, and two Green Party members.

Voters may be familiar with several names on the list, including Caitlyn Jenner, the former Olympian turned reality TV personality; and John Cox, the Orange County businessman. Other, perhaps lesser-known candidates include Democrat Kevin Paffrath, 29, a YouTube financial advisor; Libertarian Jeff Hewitt, 68, a Riverside County supervisor, and Republican Sam Gallucci, 60, a former executive at the financial management firm PeopleSoft and current pastor at an Oxnard church.

See all 41 candidates: Whos Running In Newsom Recall? Politicians, Activists, Californians Of All Stripes

The number of candidates is smaller than some analysts expected; predictions at one point ran up to 100. That could be a setback for recall supporters who had hoped for a large, prominent field to attract voters for the first question of whether or not Newsom should be recalled.

If that question fails, the recall is over and Newsom remains in office, mooting the candidates on the second ballot.

A certified list the one voters will see will be released Wednesday and changes are possible.

What questions do you have about Southern California?

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Here's Who's Running For CA Governor In The Upcoming Recall Election, So Far - LAist