Polish law versus EU law

 

From and Economist newsletter: Poland’s prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, welcomed the country’s constitutional court’s rejection of the supremacy of European Union law over member-states’ national legislation. The European Commission quickly disagreed with the court, saying the ruling raised “serious concerns”. Mr Morawiecki’s right-wing populist Law and Justice party has been accused by the EU of politicising the judicial branch and undermining the rule of law.

Is Tether Coin Trustworthy?

 Exactly how Tether is backed, or if it’s truly backed at all, has always been a mystery. For years a persistent group of critics has argued that, despite the company’s assurances, Tether Holdings doesn’t have enough assets to maintain the 1-to-1 exchange rate, meaning its coin is essentially a fraud. But in the crypto world, where joke coins with pictures of dogs can be worth billions of dollars and scammers periodically make fortunes with preposterous-sounding schemes, Tether seemed like just another curiosity.

Then, this year, Tether Holdings started putting out a huge amount of digital coins. There are now 69 billion Tethers in circulation, 48 billion of them issued this year. That means the company supposedly holds a corresponding $69 billion in real money to back the coins—an amount that would make it one of the 50 largest banks in the U.S., if it were a U.S. bank and not an unregulated offshore company.

Bloomberg

The Pandemic Has Been the Best Thing That Ever Happened for Many Americans

 

Generation X, the oft-overlooked demographic group squeezed between the Baby Boomers and Millennials, has experienced a wealth boom in the U.S. since Covid-19 was declared a national emergency…..

As of June this year, Generation X held 28.6% of the nation’s wealth, up 3.9 percentage points from the first quarter of 2020, according to Fed data. In dollar value, that translates into a 50% gain in their aggregate net worth — the difference between a household’s assets and debts…. 

In five quarters, equity assets owned by Gen X households more than doubled to $10.5 trillion, according to the Fed data. That amount is now more than 10 times the stock holdings of Millennials — yet only about half Boomers’ equity holdings.

Bloomberg

Bitcoin and Nuclear Power

The Wall Street Journal reports that bitcoin miners are turning to nuclear power plants to make their huge energy use appear to be less damaging to the environment.  The article “Bitcoin Miners Eye Nuclear Power as Environmental Criticism Mounts,” says that bitcoin miners in the US are setting up mining facilities the size of several football fields near nuclear power plants to take advantage of the fact that nuclear power does not emit greenhouse gases. 

By design the number of Bitcoins is limited and it becomes more and more difficult, and more energy intensive, to mine additional Bitcoins.  Using so much energy has made Bitcoin environmentally unpopular. If Bitcoins had not become so valuable, it would probably be uneconomic to mine them using any kind of commercial energy.

The article details the growing problems with nuclear power. Nuclear power has become less competitive as fracking has made natural gas less and less expensive. Fear of nuclear power has meant that few new nuclear plants are being built in the US. Almost all nuclear plants are old and are on the verge of being retired.  According to Wikipedia, between 2000 and 2020, the amount of electric power produced by nuclear energy in the United States has remained almost constant at about 20%.  Meanwhile during the same period, the percentage produced by coal dropped from about 50% to 20%; the natural gas percentage rose from 16% to 40%, and the renewable percentage rose from 10% to 20%. For renewables, the biggest change was in wind energy production, which rose from almost nothing in 2000 to over 8% in 2020. The big drop in coal usage has largely been replaced by natural gas, with some contribution from wind energy.

Producing electricity with natural gas produces less greenhouse gas than with coal, but the result of burning gas is still carbon dioxide. If there were a real carbon tax, producing electricity with natural gas would become more expensive. Nuclear plants do not emit carbon dioxide, which is why Bitcoin miners are turning to it to improve their public image.