I've been slowly plugging away answering questions about cryptocurrency and traditional markets on the Cindicator platform. I does tend to pay out a reward at the end of each month in the form of CND tokens, but it isn't really the real reason that I do the quick gut reaction analysis work. I like that it keeps me a bit abreast of what is happening in the prices of things in both the cryptocurrency and traditional markets. I don't tend to track prices normally, as I'm much more interested in the use cases and possible technological/societal impacts of secure decentralised databases.... so, my outlook tends to be a bit more far-sighted than the day to day bloodbath that is the crypto markets!

Still, occasionally... I'm a bit bemused about the decoupling of the traditional stock market and the real economy/sentiment of the rest of society. In many ways, it represents the worst of capitalism... the profiteering of the few over the corpses of the rest of society. It is a sad thing to see that equitable ideals of early modern society were hijacked and warped into a kill and survive mentality that means we are all essentially complicit in the raising of our own individual situations at the (often unseen) cost to others. We are all too scared to lose what little we have to risk it all for something that will be different... That said, it is the rules of the game... and there is no guarantee that different will be better, and so we keep the "normal" at the long-term cost to ourselves! There is currently no real "opt-out" until the equilibrium is disrupted. I know that there are illusions of opt-out, but if you look closely... you will see that they are still the same game.

Nothing really highlights the disconnect more than this S&P500 Futures chart that recently came up on Cindicator. The market index has hit all time heights at around 3500... which is WAYYYY above the 3000 or so that was the norm BEFORE the Coronavirus disruption. Now, we have most of society suffering (or about to suffer...) large economic hardship... held at bay by huge governmental intervention... which has saved jobs, but at the cost of massive increase in social inequality. So, "too big to fail" again...

... it is pretty depressing!

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However, that isn't really the topic of this post... Cindicator has come up with a new batch of "sentiment" style questions that aim gauge the economic and political sentiment of the analysts. Previously, these question focused more on the general macro questions of economy, jobs and political stability. These newer questions are much more individual questions that seek to poll the individual particular circumstances of the analysts.

Haha... I get out of this one on a technicality. I have just bought the OnePlus Nord a couple of weeks ago as a security upgrade from my current phone. In fact, I just received a message saying that it was due to be picked up tomorrow! YAYAYAYAYAYAAYAYAY!!

So, barring any phone related disaster... NOPE... now new shiny for me this coming year!

Thankfully, despite the difficult economic situation... we have been lucky, and we have no outstanding unpaid bills for this last month. Unfortunately, I don't think that this is a rare situation... and I suspect things will get worse as governments start winding back their job protection programs and other safeguards.

Nope... unfortunately, scraping by and staying afloat means that we are cutting back on holidays and things. Still, we are doing more camping!

Again... a weird lucky event was that we DID eat out in the last week... but we don't do that normally, but the truthful answer was that we did. There is no option to describe it as a special celebration event or anything like that!

Are you kidding me??!??!!!?!?!?... once in our life and that was enough! I highly doubt that we will ever find ourselves in the position to repeat that particular experience!

... yes! Okay, this requires a bit of explanation. As part of the subsidies that are helping self-employed people, we are boosted up to the national minimum wage (and let me tell you, that it is really quite demoralising to be accepting this help...). However, that means that if we work, we lose the subsidy on a 1:1 EUR basis. So, I work for a 500 euro job, then I lose the equivalent in subsidy. However, if I invest (I'm self employed) in equipment or other job-related expenses, my "income" gets reduced and the amount that I lose in support is less.... so, I've taken the opportunity to invest some of my income into tools that I need in the longer term. Phone and Audio equipment, for instance... so, it meant that in the last week, I happened to buy a couple of things!

Nope... that little spike last week was a once off spend to offset income against the government subsidy. That isn't going to happen again for a long long time!

HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!! We are trying to use our car even LESS! We are switching to use our electric bakfiets (cargo bike) and e-bike as much as possible. Running costs are a tiny fraction of petrol costs, as are the carbon footprints! It might be even possible that we would SELL our car!

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