One single present is bizarre. You get multiple from and for multiple family members and even friends. The *for* part is important of course, at least when they are starting to grow up and catch up with things. But even when I was little I was made aware of everybody else's wish lists so we could be happy for them too when they magically got something they liked.

Looks like France is also doing it. FYI, starting Dec 31, the new (old really) KYC/AML regs come to effect, by which exchanges and "transmitters" will have to record and INFORM automatically tax authorities of holdings and transactions, including trades between crypto assets (like BTC to USDT), AND TRANSFERS to external wallets. In Spain the threshold to be informed upon is a EUR value of 1,000, but it may vary depending on the jurisdiction. That's why you see all these countries putting into place unrealized gain taxes. View quoted note →

Please the parents of legal guardians of this person, drop by Lost and Found to pick him up. Bring a change of clothes. View quoted note →

And coming now, Europe's latest innovation: If you save it: inflation tax PLUS "unrealized gains" tax View quoted note →

"So, this one time, I was in Bangkok and" View quoted note →

The best way to approach this is to take the conversation above the silliness of what type of tyranny we prefer, and simply focus on evaporating the State. Keep it to the minimum effect on my life possible, preferably zero, and I won't care if it's a "democracy", a "monarchy", a "single party rule" or a benevolent AI overlord. All that said, the fact that someone can believe that they're entitled to some sort of special position among (above) the rest of us just because his louse-ridden, horse-riding, raping pillager inbred thug ancestors from the steppes managed to terrorize and enslave the ancestors of all the others, is outright laughable. View quoted note →