How Wisely Did The No Constitutional Convention Campaign Spend Its Money?

The Alaska Constitution requires a ballot measure on the ballot every ten years, asking voters whether there should be a new constitutional convention.  This year Alaska held the sixth such election.  

Those pushing for an election had two main goals:

1.  To make abortion illegal by either cutting out the Constitution's privacy language, adding new language that would outright ban abortions and/or say the privacy section doesn't cover abortions.

2.  Make the process for choosing judges more political so they could get judges who will not interpret the privacy clause to allow abortions.

There were any number of additional far right goals that they would love to tamper with if they got the chance.  

The measure lost decisively on Tuesday.  Mail-in, absentee, and questioned ballots are likely to make the No vote even higher and there's no way they could change the outcome.  

 

An Anchorage Daily News article today tells us:

"Defend Our Constitution dominated spending 80 to 1.

They recently reported spending $4 million and raising $4.7 million. The donations came mostly from Outside organizations like the Sixteen Thirty Fund, which is based in Washington, D.C. and has been described as a left-wing dark money group.*

Convention YES spent about $50,000, usually from small contributions from individual Alaskans, allowing them to make small ad purchases."

So, how effectively did both sides spend their money?  It's hard to know.  But since we've been voting on this question every ten years now since 1972, we can at least look at the margin of victory for the NO vote over the decades:

Alaska Constitutional Convention Question (1972)
Result		Votes	Percentage
No		55,389	65.49%
Yes		29,192	34.51%

From Ballotpedia

Alaska Measure 1 (1982)
Result		Votes	Percentage
No		108,319	62.93%
Yes		63,816	37.07%

From Ballotpedia

Alaska Constitutional Convention Question (1992)
Result		Votes	Percentage
No		142,735	62.70%
Yes		84,929	37.30%

From Ballotpedia

2002 was 72% No;  28% Yes.  [This image from Alaska Division of Elections because I couldn't find the 2002 election from Ballotpedia.]

Alaska Ballot Measure 1
Result		Votes	Percentage
No		179567	66.59%
Yes		90079	33.41%

From Ballotpedia 2012

Alaska Ballot Measure 1
Result		Votes	Percentage
Yes		62,985	30.15%
No		145,937	69.85%

From Ballotpedia   2022   [These numbers will change when all the mail-in and absentee ballots are added in.]

So, the highest NO vote has been 72% NO in 2002.  The lowest No vote was 62.7% in 1972.  

I'm guessing they could have spent $2 million and still defeated the measure soundly.  Probably $1 million.  The extra $2-3 million could have done the state a lot more good spent on the governor's race and a few of the state legislative races.  

I suspect a lot of money was wasted in this campaign.  Sometimes you don't know, but in this case we have ten years of election results suggesting Alaskans aren't interested in a Constitutional Convention.  

*I'd note that "has been described as a left-wing dark money group" is just troublesome language.  Use of the passive voice allows you to say something happened without saying who did it.  "Has been described as" could be pinned onto nearly any phrase.  And 'dark money group' is a short hand cliche that means 'bad'.  I'd bet half the readers would have trouble giving an accurate definition and they certainly wouldn't all define it to mean the same thing or in a way that would accurately describe the Sixteen Thirty Fund.  

The Trump School For Text Scammers

When the former president announced he would be coming to Alaska to campaign against Lisa Murkowski, I signed up for a ticket.  I didn't do that without thinking about whether I really wanted to share any personal information with the T organization.  But if I was going to get my ticket, they'd need a phone or email.  I decided it would be interesting to see what the T org did with that info.  And I'm a blogger.

From the first text it was clear it was a scam.  There were no tickets, you had to just wait in line for hours.  (Though the Anchorage Daily News mentioned someone who said he paid $250 to avoid the lines.  I never got that offer.  Maybe if I'd have gone to one of the links I would have seen that offer.)   But there has been a regular barrage of texts.  From two different sources - one a phone number - (855) 584 8315 - and the other just 88022.  I did visit the venue on the morning of July 9 just to see who was all there.  You can see my pictures here.

I've gotten 34 texts in the last 21 days from 88022 and 35 from the phone number.  

I decided it would be interesting to see what I could learn about how to scam people.  What are the kinds of pitches theyt make.  I did a short google search for that topic, but mostly what showed up were the names and descriptions of the scams themselves - for example.  They didn't talk about how the scammers try to lure people.  

But that's what I'm going to do here.  But first a couple of screen shots.  

I went through the texts and divided them into the different ways they made their appeal.  Some texts, of course, combined several different methods.  I've  titled each method and offered some examples from the text.  

PERSONAL RELATIONSHIP WITH TRUMP:

Text imples Trump is talking directly to you

• Watching for your name on donor list
• Don’t keep him waiting
• FOR ONLY YOU!
• President Trump noticed you still haven’t donated.  Is this a mistake?
• LAST donor list soon. Will your name be on it?
• PT:  I asked, will you answer?
• Hey it’s me   Pres Trump:  I heading to my rally soon & really need to know if I have YOUR SUPPORT

IMPACT

If you donate now it

 has greater impact

• 1000% impact
• 10X impact
• 3000X impact

I really don't know what this means.  Public radio drives sometimes tell listeners their donations will be matched so they have greater impact.  That probably happened when they first started doing that, but I doubt that's the case any more.  

Here, there's no hint at what IMPACT means.  

URGENCY

• Time is running out to claim
• 15 minutes to activate
• What are you waiting for?
• Hurry, activate.  
• Last chance
• Why wait?  I’ve asked you before & now I’m asking ONE LAST TIME
• Offer for 1 hour FINAL CHANCE
• Your only chance before it expires

I've had a lot of last chances over the last couple of weeks.  Urgency is a classic sales technique and they used it a lot.

PATRIOTISM

• I want you to join the AMERICAN DEFENSE TASK FORCE.  This is SERIOUS.

Maybe this should be combined with BE PART OF TRUMP CLUB/TEAM/LOYALTY below

THE ENEMY

• Will you DEFEND our nation from the Left?
• The Left Fears it

BE PART OF TRUMP CLUB/TEAM/LOYALTY

• PT has activated your OFFICIAL TRUMP CARD.
• I want you to become ULTRA MAGA MEMBER.
• You’ve always stood with me - will you still?
• ULTRA MAGA MEMBER

GIVE ME MONEY

• GIVE
• We’re finalizing the donor list. Give

This is the basic theme of all the texts.  It never says what the money is for.  I guess that's to avoid fraud charges when helps pay for Trump's lifestyle.  But then I've never gone to any of the links.  It's possible there's more information about what they plan to do with the money they raise.  But I doubt it.  

FIRST TIME EVER

• Never happened before
• First chance
• Never before release video OF president trump

BULLSHIT

• As THE TOP donor, I’ve texted you 3000% more  Do you want to stay on top?

Since I never made a donation, I couldn't be the top donor.  If it were true he would have raised nothing.  

STUFF

• Gold Collectors Coin
• New Video out now
• Trump Gold cards
• Trump Rally T-shirt
• Hand Signed MAGA hat
• Your ULTRA MAGA SLIM CAN COOLIES
• OFFICIAL 2022 TRUMP CARD
• I’ll activate your TRUMP FOUNDING MEMBERSHIP

These are the actual tangibles I've been offered for donations.  I had to google SLIM CAN COOLIE to figure that one out.

OK, this is the data.  What does it say about the people who actually give money?  How much does the donation plate at Sunday church services condition people to donate?  

So now that I've posted this, I can see if the STOP2END really works.  

AK Redistricting Board: Attorney Fees Decision Deferred Until After Court's Full Redistricting Opinion Comes Out - UPDATED

Alaska's Redistricting process for 2020 would appear to be pretty much over.  All that's left to close things out (or rekindle the process) is the Supreme Court's full opinion  explaining their reasoning for saying pairing Eagle River with the southern Hillside and pairing JBER with Chugiak were political gerrymandering.  That opinion could either conclude that the interim plan that is being used for 2022 elections will be the permanent plan for the rest of the decade or the Board can have the map back to do some last Senate pairing decisions.  

There really is very little the Board can do in the way of additional changes that would comply with the Court's orders up til now.  There isn't anything to really play with after the two Eagle River/Chugiak districts are paired.  They could change how JBER (after being severed from Chugiak) is paired which would cause  one or two more Senate districts to be redone.  But why do that?  It won't benefit the Board majority's interest in helping Republicans and it means residents and candidates in those districts have to make yet another adjustment for no real benefit.  

No word on when that decision will come out.  The longer it takes, the likelier it is that 2022 will be the permanent plan.  Why? 

The Board and staff have to reconvene if they get this back.  They already lost most of the staff.  I just called the remaining staffer's (Peter Torkelson) phone and it's no longer a working number.   [UPDATE  7/20/22:  Peter Torkelson let me know he is still working for the Board.  His email is still good.]

Potential candidates are already looking ahead to 2024.  But, of course, any changes would be limited to two, or at most, three Senate seats.  House seats won't be affected.  

But, on the Supreme Court docket, going back to June, is a request from the Girdwood plaintiffs for attorney fees from the Redistricting Board.  The Board, of course, objects.  The last event/item on the docket is from June 23, 2022.

"On consideration of the motion of Ken Waugh, Louis Theiss, and JennfierWingard for attorney’s fees filed on 6/6/2022, and the opposition filed by the Alaska Redistricting Board on 6/20/2022,

IT IS ORDERED: This motion is STAYED until the opinion in this matter isissued.

Entered at the direction of an individual justice."

I'd note that only the orders from the court are available on the public docket.  

At a traditional news medium, this is the kind of thing they report on a slow news day.  On a personal blog, it's what you put up when you are trying to catch up and don't have time for a more complicated post.  

 

Labor Shortage, Law Enforcement And Teaching In Alaska

 This has been flashing at the State Troopers Headquarters at Tudor and MLK

Now Hiring State Troopers

$20,000 Hiring Bonus

Starting Salary $74,693-100,630

Apply Online Today

Here are the qualifications listed online:

The minimum qualifications for the position of State Trooper Recruit/Lateral are outlined below.

General Qualifications

• Must be a citizen (including US Nationals) of the United States of America.
• Must be 21 years of age or older* at the start of the academy .
• Must be conversant in both spoken and written English.
• Most possess a high school diploma or have passed a General Education Development (GED) test.

* There is no upper age limit; if you can pass the physical fitness test and medical screening,  you could be hired.

Driving

• Must possess a valid driver’s license issued within the United States or its Territories.
• Must be free of excessive moving violations and recent license actions (canceled, revoked, suspended, limited, or SR-22 requirement).

Drugs

Drug use/abuse is closely scrutinized and recent drug use may be cause for elimination from the hiring process, including:

• Marijuana use within the last year
• Use of illegal narcotics within the last ten years
• Manufacture/sale of illegal narcotics as an adult
• Illegal drug use while employed in a law enforcement position
• Prescription drug use without a prescription unless there was an immediate, pressing, or emergency medical circumstance to justify the use

Criminal History

• Adult criminal history is closely scrutinized and the following may be cause for elimination from the hiring process:
• Felony conduct as an adult
• Misdemeanor convictions within the last ten years
• Any conviction related to domestic violence

So a high school diploma or GED is all you need to get a starting salary of

In comparison, here's the salary schedule from the Anchorage Education Association  Contract - teachers.  This is for the 202-1022 school year.  There is a bump up each year, but the highest starting salary is $55,158 and the highest top salary is $97,238.  

100 SERIES – SALARIES AND BENEFITS 105 SALARY SCHEDULE

2021-2022 Salary Schedule

Step	B00	B18	B36	B54	B72
0	53,287	55,872	58,455	61,039	65,882
1	54,698	57,282	59,865	62,448	67,283
2	56,106	58,690	61,273	63,857	68,685
3	57,516	60,099	62,682	65,266	70,087
4	58,925	61,508	64,091	66,674	71,488
5	60,333	62,917	65,501	68,085	72,892
6	61,745	64,326	66,910	69,494	74,294
7	63,153	65,737	68,320	70,901	75,697
8	64,562	67,145	69,729	72,311	77,101
9	65,970	68,554	71,137	73,722	78,501
10	67,378	69,963	72,548	75,129	79,904
11	-	71,371	73,955	76,540	81,306
12	-	72,780	75,364	77,947	82,708
13	-	-	76,773	79,357	84,109
14	-	-	78,182	80,768	85,514
15	-	-	79,591	82,175	86,915
16	-	-	-	83,584	88,318
17	-	-	-	84,993	89,718
18	-	-	-	-	91,119
19	-	-	-	-	92,520
20	-	-	-	-	93,922

 

Here are the qualification requirements for an elementary school teacher:

Job Requirements
The following are required:

1. A valid Alaska initial, professional, or master teaching certificate.
2. Evidence of content knowledge shown by:
1. a posted degree in the content area of this position; or
2. a posted minor in the content area of this position; or
3. passing Praxis Subject Assessments scores (formerly Praxis II) in the content area of this position; or
4. a certificate endorsement in the content area of this position

What's required for a teaching certificate?  There's a lot of different ones listed, but here's for someone who has never taught in Alaska:

INITIAL/PROGRAM ENROLLMENT TEACHER CERTIFICATE

To qualify for an Initial/Program Enrollment teacher certificate, an applicant must meet the following requirements:

• Has never held an Alaska teacher certificate

• Completion of a bachelor’s degree from a regionally or nationally accredited university;

• Current enrollment in an approved teacher preparation program as verified by a Program Enrollment form (docx) and official transcripts (Program must be completed within two (2) years of the issuance of the Initial certificate).
• Passing scores on an approved basic competency exam 
• Has passing scores on an approved content area exam
• Five years of experience in the subject matter that you will be teaching;

• Offered a certified teaching position by an Alaska public school district.

I've had comments in the past that argued that having a Bachelor's degree is no guarantee that someone can do the job better than someone without one.  That requiring such a degree is elitist.   I would say that depends on the kind of job you're hiring for.  And the quality of the degree one has.  

But I would argue that a good Bachelor's degree forces one to challenge one's world view, to be exposed to alternative ways of thinking about things, to develop thinking and logic skills, and to spend time working through ethical problems.

I suspect that if qualified teachers applied for and got State Trooper positions, the quality of our state law enforcement would improve greatly.  I also think that if our teacher pay scale were to be more like the trooper pay scale, we'd have better teacher applicants.  But I would also acknowledge that there are both troopers and teachers who would apply for those positions regardless of the pay, because that's what they really want to do.  In both cases, I would hope the hiring authorities make sure that the want to pursue those careers for the right reasons.  

Recalls Are A Pain [Updated]

[Updated Nov 2, 2021 - For folks not in Anchorage, the recall has failed badly.  There are still by mail votes trickling in, but as of Nov1, No was well ahead.]  

While I'm strongly opposed to the Meg Zaletel recall, this post was supposed to mention that briefly as I talked about problems with recalls in general.  Not that they shouldn't happened when politicians act badly, but that they shouldn't be used to harass hard working politicians over policy disagreements with ridiculous technical violation charges.  

But as I tried to track down the details, I kept discovering odd things about the people behind the recall effort.  

Let me say here, Meg is a great Assembly member.  But that's why she's a target here.  These are an odd set of characters trying to get her recalled a few months before here actual reelection would come up.  (Though in fairness, court challenges delayed actual signature gathering.)

Sometimes blog posts often write themselves and I'm just the fingers that work the keys.  Right now there's a struggle happening with this post between me and the mysterious force that throws strange facts my way in an attempt to hijack a post.  This wasn't exactly what I had in mind when I started.  

So let's use  the Meg Zaletel recall election as an example of an Alaskan recall vote.  

Step 1:  From the Alaska State Statutes:

"(a) An application for a recall petition shall be filed with the municipal clerk and must contain

(1) the signatures and residence addresses of at least 10 municipal voters who will sponsor the petition;"

Steps 2 and 3 and maybe 4, depending on how you count.  The Zaletel petition was rejected by the Municipal Clerk, but later approved - in part - by the Superior Court and then the Supreme Court.  

Step 5:  Getting enough signatures to put the recall on the ballot.

From Alaska Statutes:

 "the petition shall be signed by a number of the voters residing in the district equal to 25 percent of the number of votes cast in the district for that office at the last regular election held before the date the written notice is given to the contact person that the petition is available."

2019 District 4 Assembly Results

So, there were 9769 total votes cast in the district 4 Assembly seat election.  25% of that is 2442.  (Other sources say 2468).  I read a claim somewhere that they ended up with 4900 signatures, but I can't verify that.

You may notice that the person who came in second was Christine Hill.  She was the local Republican Party chair who passed out yellow stars of David at Assembly Meetings on mask mandates recently.  

Here's the district:

Basically, 

South:  Abbott Loop and a bit of Dimond

West:  Minnesota, C St, and Spenard 

North:  Campbell Creek, Lake Otis, 15th

East:  Along APU eastern border, a bit of Tudor, then Campbell Airstrip Road back to Abbot.

The original recall petition signed by, apparently, a group of 14 neighbors in Geneva Woods.  You only need 10 people to sign the original petition for the recall.  Then you have to get the rest of the 25% of people who voted in the election.  

This petition was ultimately accepted.  Another that claimed she limited public participation by limiting number of people who get go into the chambers was rejected because the Municipal Code explicitly allows for call in testimony.  

Basically, when there were over 15 people in the Assembly chamber, Zaletel (and all the other members present) didn't adjourn the meeting and leave.  Clearly a legalistic complaint that could have been made about all the other members of the Assembly.  And I'm sure the petitioners, who opposed the COVID restrictions, enjoyed the irony of using one as the basis of the recall.

The basic issue is that Zaletel is competent, rational, works hard, and but has different views - as does the majority of the Assembly - from the petitioners.  She also supported using the Golden Lion Hotel as a rehabilitation center.  The hotel is near the upscale Geneva Woods neighborhood almost all of the petitioners live in.  

As I was trying to track down details for this, I found several far right wing groups tracking this both in Alaska and nationally.  And we can see by the money being spent on this recall on both sides that this is much more than a typical recall.  This is part of the Trump encouraged attacks on all levels of government.  

OK, so that's what's happened regarding this current recall election which is a vote by mail election that ends on Tuesday.  

The $75,000 contribution to the recall campaign by Marc McKenna, head of McKenna Brothers Paiving, of course, raises questions.  One of the biggest users of paving are governments with streets to pave.  But I also learned that it was at a birthday party for Marc and his brother Matt in 2014, that the infamous Palin family brawl broke out.  I can't completely verify all that was reported in that link, but the BBC also reported on the party and quotes Marc's brother Matt.

So I really didn't get to say the things I was thinking about when I was contemplating this post so let me do it quickly now.

1. 
   It's hard to make a NO recall sign.  Look at the picture up top.  I think the NO RECALL part should have been bigger than Zaletel's name. Driving down the street you don't have much time to look and you can't be sure if the sign is telling you to vote yes or no because the no is too small.  [UPDATE Oct 25, 2021- walking through my neighborhood this morning I saw this]
   new and improved No Recall sign.  Compare to the one at top - the NO RECALL is much larger.]
2. It's important to have a recall option.  But it should be a little harder to get it on the ballot.  The problems with Meg Zaletel are NOT issues of her violating the law or misconduct.  These people don't like her politics and can't wait for the next election. 
3. They also tried to recall Felix Rivera in the last municipal election.  He represents District 4 with Zaletel.  That recall lost in the election.  BUT, that was a regular election.  More people show up at regular elections.  The recall crowd has more momentum in a special election.  
4. So, as good as Zaletel is, her not being recalled is not at all certain.  
5. That said, any day now there will be a recall drive started to oust Anchorage's Mayor Dave Bronson.  He's responsible, in my mind, of killing 50-60  people in Anchorage since taking office in July by not taking action to stem the spread of COVID.  In fact his actions have helped it spread rapidly making Alaska the top state in the country in terms of COVID infections per 100,000.  But the petitioners will have more specific violations.  

The Rich Screw The Poor in Netflix's The Billion Dollar Code And Squid Game -

1.   Billion Dollar Code. 

It tells the story of two young, idealistic, naive German nerds in the early 90s who create a program that allows you to fly via your computer screen to any place on earth.  The story skips back and forth between the story of developing Terra View and the law suit against Google and Google Earth for appropriating their creation and violating their patent. 

I don't know how accurately the series portrays the real events, but even if it's not accurate

1. it's a good story with good characters
2. the general idea of super large corporations buying out, if not stealing, the work of others and thus taking out competition and creating huge Goliath corporations is what is happening in the world.  Just consider that over the years Google has acquired Blogger (the platform for this blog), and YouTube (where I post videos for this blog), 

Code is in German with subtitles, though I suspect you can listen to it all in English, but I didn't check. It's interesting and humbling hearing the attorneys for Terra View's creators switch back and forth between perfect German and perfect English.  

Another nice feature is that there are only four episodes.  And while they are listed in "Season 1" it essentially ended with S1E4.  

For those interested in how our economy favors the wealthy, definitely watch.  

2.  Squid Game

Netflix was pushing Squid Game and I reviewed the brief description and decided I could pass.  It sounded too violent.  But then I read a review about how it was Netflix's biggest hit ever.  So we watched Episode One. 

Way too violent.  

Then I read another review that talked about how it was a critique of capitalism, particularly in South Korea.  How people in debt are offered an opportunity to play a game and potentially win billions of won.  The players get picked up in vans, put to sleep, and driven to a secret island. 

We decided to give it another try.  What I've said above shouldn't spoil any of it for you. All that happened in the beginning of Episode One.  

But it is a very loose commentary on poverty and debt in South Korea which, along with Yuh-Jung Youn's Academy Award winning film Parasite, have revised my sense of how things are actually going for people in South Korea.  In this series - there are nine episodes in season one and enough loose ends that a second season is inevitable - there is lots of violence and a very clear contrast between the very rich and those who keep falling behind economically.  

I don't know that I would recommend Squid Game.  It's interesting, good film making with good visuals and good acting.  But there's also enough blood to fill a Blood Bank.  And some good twists and turns.  

I'm Punting Here, But Edward Snowden Is A Smarter And Better Writer Than I

I'm working on posts related to COVID and our mayor, and on redistricting, but it takes time to post something that's got something in it that everyone hasn't already heard. 

So when I read a Tweet by Edward Snowden - "On banking, bitcoin, and the future of money: a response to a governor of the Federal Reserve, Christopher J. Waller" - and then read the Substack article it was linked to, I knew I had something I could share while I continued working on (at least thinking about) my own posts.  

So, who is Waller?  Snowden tells us:

"Waller, an economist and a last-minute Trump appointee to the Fed, will serve his term until January 2030."

Waller was talking about whether the US government should create its own cryptocurrency in response to Bitcoin and other such currencies.  Snowden points out that China and a few other nations have already done this.  China, because it's a great way to keep track of how individuals are moving money around.  And government controlled cryptocurrency's biggest problem for Snowden, if I understand him, is the surveillance aspect of cryptocurrency.  

I'm impressed with how well Snowden writes.  He gets so much content into relatively few well chosen and organized words.  And he's really smart.  With a wicked understated sense of humor.  I don't understand everything he says, but with the endorsements of heroes like Daniel Ellsberg, I think what Snowden writes is worth paying attention to.  And his writing is just fun to read, even on a highly technical subject I don't know that much about.  But computers and surveillance are two subjects that Snowden is an expert on.  

There's even a history of money

For thousands of years priors to the advent of CBDCs, money—the conceptual unit of account that we represent with the generally physical, tangible objects we call currency—has been chiefly embodied in the form of coins struck from precious metals. The adjective “precious”—referring to the fundamental limit on availability established by what a massive pain in the ass it was to find and dig up the intrinsically scarce commodity out of the ground—was important, because, well, everyone cheats: the buyer in the marketplace shaves down his metal coin and saves up the scraps, the seller in the marketplace weighs the metal coin on dishonest scales, and the minter of the coin, who is usually the regent, or the State, dilutes the preciosity of the coin’s metal with lesser materials, to say nothing of other methods.

At the very least, this is an early warning for me (well others might say rather late) to pay more attention to cryptocurrency and what it might mean for the future of money.  And the ability of governments to monitor how people spend their money.  

So I'm strongly recommending the article.  Here's the link again.  Meanwhile, here are some quotes from the article.  

“Intermediation,” and its opposite “disintermediation,” constitute the heart of the matter, and it’s notable how reliant Waller’s speech is on these terms, whose origins can be found not in capitalist policy but, ironically, in Marxist critique. What they mean is: who or what stands between your money and your intentions for it.

This “crypto”—whose very technology was primarily created in order to correct the centralization that now threatens it—was, generally is, and should be constitutionally unconcerned with who possesses it and uses it for what. To traditional banks, however, not to mention to states with sovereign currencies, this is unacceptable: These upstart crypto-competitors represent an epochal disruption, promising the possibility of storing and moving verifiable value independent of State approval, and so placing their users beyond the reach of Rome. Opposition to such free trade is all-too-often concealed beneath a veneer of paternalistic concern, with the State claiming that in the absence of its own loving intermediation, the market will inevitably devolve into unlawful gambling dens and fleshpots rife with tax fraud, drug deals, and gun-running.  

 

Traditional financial services, of course, being the very face and definition of “intermediation”—services that seek to extract for themselves a piece of our every exchange. 

I think about how credit cards and Amazon make money simply by getting a percent of everything we buy, adding their own tax to everything consumers buy or businesses sell.  

I risk few readers by asserting that the commercial banking sector is not, as Waller avers, the solution, but is in fact the problem—a parasitic and utterly inefficient industry that has preyed upon its customers with an impunity backstopped by regular bail-outs from the Fed, thanks to the dubious fiction that it is “too big too fail.” 

Ultimately, Snowden says he agrees with Waller's conclusion that the US should not create its own crypto currency, but for a different reason.  

"And yet I admit that I still find his remarks compelling—chiefly because I reject his rationale, but concur with his conclusions.

It’s Waller’s opinion, as well as my own, that the United States does not need to develop its own CBDC. Yet while Waller believes that the US doesn’t need a CBDC because of its already robust commercial banking sector, I believe that the US doesn’t need a CBDC despite the banks, whose activities are, to my mind, almost all better and more equitably accomplished these days by the robust, diverse, and sustainable ecosystem of non-State cryptocurrencies (translation: regular crypto). " 

One key point that hasn't gotten into this post yet is surveillance 

I think I'm pushing the ethical limits on the amount I can quote from someone. Really, this is only fraction of what he wrote and I'm hoping that through his quotes I can entice you to click the link to his article.  Consider this post a trailer for his article.