#### Politics ####

   ## Curfews have been lifted in D.C. and L.A. county. The violence is
   dying down, and the four officers being charged seem to have had an
   effect. Was there also an effect from the National guard?

   #Jim Craig, an associate professor of military and veteran studies in
   relation to the Ferguson civil distress in 2014 said, “calling out the
   national guard for a flood is one thing, calling out the national guard
   for riots and unrest moves say into the extreme.”

   [1]https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/18/what-is-national-guard
   -ferguson-missouri

   #So let’s not discount the extreme nature of what has just happened and
   also the fact that it has become obviously much more common since many
   states deployed the nation guard this last week.

   #As of June 2, 23 states activated the National Guard in reaction to
   the riots, 17,000 of them on Monday morning. 45,000 have already been
   activated in response to the Covid crisis. That means about 66,700
   National Guard personnel are active right now in all 50 states. This is
   multiples of the amount of active-duty troops in Syria, Iraq, and
   Afghanistan.

   [2]https://www.forbes.com/sites/niallmccarthy/2020/06/02/which-us-state
   s-have-deployed-the-national-guard-in-response-to-the-protests-infograp
   hic/#10ed87706195

   ## Even though things seem to have been dying down and staying peaceful
   Portland is still dealing with violence as they have a large ANTIFA to
   citizen ratio, and some rioters abroad have begun to express their
   solidarity with the American rioters by rioting themselves. Greek
   demonstrators as the most extravagant of them all threw
   Molotov cocktails towards the U.S. embassy in Athens.

   [3]https://www.reuters.com/article/us-minneapolis-police-protests-greec
   e/greek-demonstrators-hurl-firebombs-towards-us-embassy-in-athens-idUSK
   BN23A2ZL

   ## No longer are the protests for justice for George Floyd as that
   seems to be well on its way, but the riots are now against white
   superiority and police brutality.

   ## This is good, more or less, it’s undoubtedly something that needs to
   be addressed. But what comes to mind is Killer Mike’s speech in Atlanta
   a few days ago. We need to be beating our opposition up in the voting
   booth. By putting the the politicians you want into the jobs where they
   can make a difference there’s a big chance of changing some things. But
   right now the rioters are trying to kill wasps with a shotgun, it’s not
   going to work, they’re going to cause a lot of damage, and get
   themselves hurt in the process. Dealing with wasps properly is going to
   take more time and effort but will be much more effective.

   ...Which leads me to, another success in this saga:

   ## Defund the Police

   ## NYC Comptroller Wants $1.1B cut from the NYPD

   #The cut is supposed to happen over the next four years in order to aid
   “vulnerable communities most impacted by police violence and structural
   racism.”

   #The plan: $265M annually by reducing headcount through attrition,
   suspending hiring of new police classes, and scaling back overtime.
   According to statement from Scott Stringer.

   [4]https://comptroller.nyc.gov/newsroom/comptroller-stringer-to-mayor-d
   e-blasio-cut-1-1-billion-in-nypd-spending-over-four-years-and-reinvest-
   in-vulnerable-communities-and-vital-services/

   #The 1.1B cut is a %19 reduction in the overall budget for the NYPD

   ## So that’s a win! Or, is it just a consolation prize? Like we talked
   about there is a substantial amount of National guard deployed right
   now. I realize that many of the people in the national guard are
   average citizens on reserve, but this feels close to martial law! Maybe
   governors of all the states are realizing how easy it is to deploy the
   National Guard reserves during a crisis and therefore don’t feel the
   need to have police funded? This is a major speculation and as I’m sure
   the NYC comptroller and Governor Cuomo know each other but it’s a long
   shot that they are colluding.

   ## Never the less, I am always suspicious when the government “cuts
   back” and ask myself, are they really cutting back or are they just
   moving power and influence form the front-end to the back-end in order
   to save face but retain control.

   ## If it is in good faith, is it really the most effective route to
   take? Right now it probably is for many reasons, the least of them not
   being that of calming down the angry people and showing them that the
   government cares. But I feel there’s more of a change in the way of a
   spiritual revolution that could be of a larger benefit.

   ## Nicolo Machiavelli’s eighth rule of war: Discipline in war counts
   more than fury.

   [5]https://warontherocks.com/2014/08/machiavellis-27-rules-of-war/

   ## “Poverty is the parent of revolution and crime.” - Aristotle

   #### Covid ####

   ## NYC hits zero confirmed covid deaths for first day since march

   #NYC hit it’s peak death rate on April 7

   [6]https://www.nydailynews.com/coronavirus/ny-coronavirus-deaths-confir
   med-covid-de-blasio-20200604-a5dfx2l6hvgwlll4vou67zrqla-story.html

   ## The fact is that this pandemic has been bad, but not as bad as we
   expected.

   ## Another 1.9 million have filed for unemployment, the ninth week of
   that number declining but still a massive ammount of unemployed. Still
   more unemployed than during the great depression.

   [7]https://www.nydailynews.com/coronavirus/ny-coronavirus-nyc-us-world-
   updates-latest-20200529-454anhyubvhtnofqqjqneiaryy-story.html

   #### Crypto ####

   ## MakerDAO weighs accepting real-world assets as crypto loan
   collateral.

   #Another step towards more robust decentralized financial services, one
   of the most promising ideas in the cryptocurrency space.

   [8]https://www.coindesk.com/makerdao-weighs-accepting-real-world-assets
   -as-crypto-loan-collateral

   #With decentralized financial services everyone with an internet
   connection can take advantage of the same methods that the ultra rich
   use in order to protect their wealth.

   #That is, creating liquidity from nonliquid assets and therefore adding
   a layer of protection from inflation (among other things.)

   #Why do you think that the ultra wealthy buy painting for hundreds of
   millions of dollars? It’s a very slowly appreciating thing and is
   difficult to take care of. First of all it’s definitely insured so they
   can recoup much of that cost, but it’s also very easy to put that up as
   collateral and open a line of credit with a bank that cost them about
   1% in interest. So they do in fact use the money to purchase the
   painting but in a roundabout way make it possible to take that money
   back out from the investment without actually selling the asset itself.

   #Projects like Celsius and MakerDAO do the exact same thing but with
   cryptocurrency. It requires no credit rating, little KYC, and your loan
   comes to you with about a 1% interest rate.

   #The advancement of Non-fungible tokens, which is what powers crypto
   kitties, is what will be able to act as lesson between your real world
   assets and the loan that you take out (in a USD-pegged stable coin, by
   the way.)

   #Goes to show that most technological advancements become applied to at
   worst borderline nonsensical projects and at best fun things to do
   before they go on to potentially change the entire world as we know it.

   #This is a big deal that could make MakerDAO a lot of money and enable
   the common people to take advantage of financial services that are
   currently reserved for the wealthy and well-connected.

References

   1. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/18/what-is-national-guard-ferguson-missouri
   2. https://www.forbes.com/sites/niallmccarthy/2020/06/02/which-us-states-have-deployed-the-national-guard-in-response-to-the-protests-infographic/#10ed87706195
   3. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-minneapolis-police-protests-greece/greek-demonstrators-hurl-firebombs-towards-us-embassy-in-athens-idUSKBN23A2ZL
   4. https://comptroller.nyc.gov/newsroom/comptroller-stringer-to-mayor-de-blasio-cut-1-1-billion-in-nypd-spending-over-four-years-and-reinvest-in-vulnerable-communities-and-vital-services/
   5. https://warontherocks.com/2014/08/machiavellis-27-rules-of-war/
   6. https://www.nydailynews.com/coronavirus/ny-coronavirus-deaths-confirmed-covid-de-blasio-20200604-a5dfx2l6hvgwlll4vou67zrqla-story.html
   7. https://www.nydailynews.com/coronavirus/ny-coronavirus-nyc-us-world-updates-latest-20200529-454anhyubvhtnofqqjqneiaryy-story.html
   8. https://www.coindesk.com/makerdao-weighs-accepting-real-world-assets-as-crypto-loan-collateral