Connect with us

Business and Finance

Crypto surges after Trump’s election – but is it a good ethical investment?

Published

on

Estimated 18 million Americans are invested cryptocurrency– says the Federal Reserve. And the United States has just chosen pro-crypto-president.

Cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin have change into trendy digital resource. Supporters say crypto undermines capitalism because it bypasses traditional bankers. Crypto perhaps offer quick riches together with an environment of high-tech sophistication.

Early adopters reaped enormous advantages, and plenty of of them became millionaires and billionaires.

Advertisement

Currently, there are approx 100,000 cryptocurrency millionaires. Moreover, cryptocurrency wealth has been built Fairshake, the most important political lobbying group within the US During the last election, it helped elect 253 pro-crypto candidates.

But is cryptocurrency a good ethical investment?

as business professor who studies the technology and its implications, I even have identified three ethical harms related to cryptocurrency which will give investors pause.

Three wrongs

The first harm is excessive energy consumptionparticularly Bitcoin, the primary decentralized cryptocurrency.

Advertisement

Bitcoins are created or “mined” by tens of hundreds of computers in huge data centers, which contributes significantly to carbon emissions and environmental degradation. Bitcoin mining, which accounts for the lion’s share of cryptocurrency’s energy consumption, uses as much as 0.9% of worldwide electricity demand – near Australia’s annual energy demand.

Secondly, unregulated and anonymous cryptocurrencies are the payment system of alternative for criminals fraud, tax evasion, human trafficking AND ransomware – the latter cost victims an estimated $1 billion in fraudulent cryptocurrency payments.

Until about a decade ago, these bad actors generally moved and laundered money through money and shell corporations. However, around 2015, many individuals switched to cryptocurrency, which is a much less cumbersome type of service dirty money anonymously.

The bank cannot store or transfer money anonymously. By law it is a bank passively complicit in money laundering if not enforced get to know your customer measures to curb bad actors resembling money launderers.

Advertisement

However, within the case of cryptocurrency, legal and ethical responsibility can’t be transferred to the bank – the bank doesn’t exist. So who is complicit? Any member of the cryptocurrency ecosystem will be seen as ethically complicit in enabling illegal activities.

Enegix employees work at a data center in Ekibastus, Kazakhstan, certainly one of the world’s largest Bitcoin mines, January 3, 2023.
Meiramgul Kussainova/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

I find these first two harms to be probably the most ethically troubling. The first harms the Earth, the second undermines global systems of trust – the interplay of institutions that underpin economic activity and social order.

The third problem of cryptocurrency is its predatory culture.

A predatory system, especially without regulatory oversight, exploits small investors. And some cryptocurrencies have enriched their founders by reaping the advantages lack of investor knowledge about virtual currency.

Advertisement

Some cryptocurrencies, especially smaller coins and initial coin offerings, do Characteristics of Ponzi schemes.

For example, the now defunct Bitconnect promised investors big profits who exchanged their Bitcoins for Bitconnect tokens. New investors’ money paid out “profits” to the primary layer of investors with later investors’ money.

Ultimately, Satish Kumbhani, founding father of Bitconnect, decided to achieve this indicted by a federal grand juryand from 2024 his whereabouts are unknown.

A pernicious myth

In addition to the ethical harms of cryptocurrency, there is a pernicious myth surrounding digital coin. The myth of inclusion is the idea that cryptocurrency has the facility to profit especially socially disadvantaged people without a checking account.

Advertisement

The world’s poor who wouldn’t have bank accounts and who could use cryptocurrency for international money transfers to family back home don’t necessarily enjoy the advantages of cryptocurrencies. It’s for this reason need pay conversion and transfer feessay, dollars to cryptocurrency, after which from cryptocurrency to the local currency of the person receiving the cash transfer.

In fact, the distribution of crypto assets is largely concentrated among the many wealthy. A 2021 study found that simply 0.01% of Bitcoin owners controls 27% of its value.

The democratization of finance is often presented as a move geared toward breaking the dominance of traditional financial institutions – private banks and government central banks. However, this narrative didn’t prove true.

Instead, a latest elite emerged: cryptocurrency creatorsearly supporters of i conservatorswho modify the cryptocurrency’s software code and influence its future direction. This group exercises disproportionate control, including over cryptocurrency management. All of this reflects the concentration of power that cryptocurrency was intended to dismantle.

Advertisement

Just a little more ethical?

To be fair, the cryptocurrency community has not ignored the criticism, including calls for greater environmental awareness.

In early 2021, community members founded Cryptocurrency Agreement. The group has recruited around 250 crypto corporations to cut back environmental damage.

The following 12 months, Ethereum took its most important step with its Ether coin. It has reduced its size energy consumption by over 99% by migrating to a coin mining mechanism called “proof of stake”, which doesn’t require miners to unravel complex, energy-intensive puzzles to validate transactions.

It was a daring move. However, Bitcoin, the most important cryptocurrency, has not followed in Ethereum’s footsteps. Bitcoin stands out in that its energy consumption exceeds that of another cryptocurrency.

Advertisement
A worker stands between two rows of bitcoin mining machines along a wall.
A employee installs a latest row of bitcoin mining machines on the Whinstone US bitcoin mining facility in Rockdale, Texas, October 9, 2021.
Mark Felix/AFP/AFP via Getty Images

To address other harms of cryptocurrency, some Regulatory authorities began to regulate the cryptocurrency market in 2023, the European Union, the United Kingdom and the United States have launched efforts to curb criminality and protect investors.

In January 2024, US regulators listed funds allowedthat are popular investment funds for investing in cryptocurrencies. The move was intended to assist small investors trade in a safer market.

However, normalizing cryptocurrency trading could have perverse ethical consequences.

For example, probably the most successful ‘ethical’ fund in 2023, Nikko Ark Positive Change Innovation Fundwas successful with a 68% return because he bet on cryptocurrencies. Its manager rationalized this investment by repeating the parable that cryptocurrency allows “providing financial services to underbanked people

Where does all this leave the ethical investor?

I consider that investors have two clear ethical options regarding cryptocurrencies: they will abandon Bitcoin or no less than put money into other cryptocurrencies that minimize harm, especially environmental harm.

Advertisement

However, even so-called ethical investments raise hidden ethical issues.

Many ethical investors put money into the so-called ESG funds that emphasize social or environmental impact. Some of those ESG funds may avoid holdings in oil corporations by investing directly or not directly in cryptocurrencies.

This doesn’t seem ethically coherent.

While cryptocurrency offers exciting opportunities and the potential for prime returns, its environmental impact, links to criminality and predatory nature pose significant ethical challenges.

Advertisement

This article was originally published on : theconversation.com
Continue Reading
Click to comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Business and Finance

Target admits that Dei Rolback and boycott have contributed to the decrease in sales

Published

on

By

It looks like a goal boycott. According to Yahoo FinanceIn the case of merger with earnings with investors, the general director Brian Cornell admitted that the decreases in sales in the first quarter of the store were, at the very least partly due to consumer reactions to their announced initiatives of diversity, equality and integration (Dei) in January. This “reaction” was a phone call of varied organizations and groups to boycott the seller.

According to Cornell, concerns about tariffs, the decreasing trust of consumers in the seller (this dei of things) and inflation caused a slow first quarter of sales.

Advertisement

“We believe that each of these factors played a role in our performance in the first quarter, we cannot reliably estimate the impact of each of them separately.”

Target, together with other retail sellers, similar to Amazon and Wal-Mart, announced plans to change the course when it comes to Dei, but Target seems to be the most difficult company thanks to this decision. In the first week of March, pedestrian traffic goal fell by 7 percent compared to a yr ago. On the other hand, Costco doubled his involvement in the DEI initiative, and their pedestrian traffic increased by 7 percent yr -on -year.

The boycott of the goal or “fast target” was directed by many organizations, especially Fr. Dr. Jamal Bryant. The results of the “fast” was the goal of Cornell Cornell, having collapsed to meet Fr. Al Sharpton – Rev. Bryant was at the meeting – to discover what a retailer can do to finish a boycott. After the meeting, no reference to a boycott was carried out, and now the website “Fast Target” I even sell goods.

It will be safely said that there isn’t a end in the view of the decline in sales of the goal due to “consumer trust”.

Advertisement

Research analyst CFRA Arun Sundaram said Yahoo Finance: “I don’t think Target assured that the boycott associated with Dei was limited to this quarter.”

Analysts also consider that history has something more. Wal-Mart, who again decided to undo the Dei strategies, didn’t see the same result as the goal. In fact, Wal-Mart overtook the expectations of sales-using a 4.5 percent sales jump, as opposed to 3.85 percent, which he expected.

The Roth Capital Partners Research analyst said: “Consumers are not forced to use target in the same way as it used to be … If you are not forced to use target for a specific reason, makes the boycott much simpler to make.”

Needless to say, the exact impact of the boycott on the goal will not be easy to analyze, the boycott was successful to date, leaving the sellers only hope that customers who found other stores will resolve to come back and that the boycott leaders will end the movement.

Advertisement
Yale University Awards Honorary Steps to five black luminaires, including Debbie Allen, Henry Louis

(Tagstranslat) news

This article was originally published on : thegrio.com
Continue Reading

Business and Finance

Trump cuts off the minimum wage increase

Published

on

By

Executive order 14236, minimum wage, President Trump, federal contractors, hourly workers


President Donald Trump canceled the key executive order from the time of Biden, which raised the minimum wage for federal contractors to USD 17.75 per hour, the movement that warned work supporters will negatively affect a whole lot of hundreds of employees with low earnings, with a very significant impact on black employees, especially in the states through which black Americans are a big a part of the federal force. working.

Pisuction, adopted by the executive order 14236 on March 14 Effectively excludes Executive ordinance 14026, signed by President Joe Biden on April 27, 2021, which progressively increased the minimum wage for federal contract employees.

The currently reborn order of Biden, which from 2022 recorded full effects, raised a minimum wage for these employees and directed the secretary of labor to introduce future corrections to maintain the inflation step.

Advertisement

From January 1 It caused In a minimum wage of USD 17.75 for individuals employed by private firms and non -profit organizations concluded by the federal government. By raising the federal minimum wage for all employees requires congress activities, the Department of Labor is entitled to set higher wage standards especially for federal contractors. Contractors include a large spectrum of employees in various industries, from the staff of the war and catering service to IT specialists.

Estimates from the Institute of Economic Policy (EPI) in 2021 forecasted that about 1.9 million people, including construction employees, organized federal tasks of contracts in 2022. About 390,000 employees, representing about one five of all federal labor, it was that their wages would increase as a result of the order of executive biden 14026. collectively Experience the increase in remuneration by $ 1.2 billion.

Proponents of the next minimum wage argue that he assures that taxpayers’ dollars support job offers that provide life salary, as an alternative of encouraging the “Race to the bottom” through which contractors compete, providing the lowest possible salary. They also indicate research suggesting that the increase in the minimum wage results in lower trade in employees, improvement of worker efficiency and increased efficiency.

For example, Study 2021 Krista Ruffini He identified that minimum wage increases in care homes correlated with higher worker results, reduced violations of control, less possibility to stop health states and lower mortality of residents.

Advertisement

The removal of Trump executive ordinance 14026 is capable of reverse these profits for around 390,000 federal contract employees with low remuneration entitled to no less than USD 15 per hour under the regulation. If the Trump administration fully dismantled this principle, the minimum wage for these contractors would probably return to the level set by Obama’s administration in 2014, which was USD 13.30 per hour. Alternatively, if the administration eliminated the next minimum wage for federal contractors, people working in the US and not using a higher minimum wage could decelerate their minimum wage to the current federal minimum of only 7.25 USD per hour.

Trump executive order 14236, “Additional resignations of harmful executive orders and activities”, DirectlY dismissed the executive ordinance 14026. After that, the Department of Work announced that stopping the enforcement of the order from the time of Biden and its implementation rules, initiating steps to officially dismiss 29 CFR Part 23.

Professioners of labor and progressive groups criticized this movement as an attack on the working class, especially when rising maintenance costs are already a major problem. They Argument that disgusting The decision awards the private sector to the governmental agreement freedom to scale back wages of a whole lot of hundreds of employees. Data from Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) in 2022 ensure the context of the influence of minimum wage policies. This yr, about 2 percent of black hourly employees earned Federal minimum or less wage.

Disproportionate effect on black employees

Advertisement

It is predicted that the remuneration of the federal contractor minimum remuneration in disproportionate influence on black employees who I discovered historically More fair employment opportunities in the public sector in comparison with the private sector.

The data emphasize that no less than 18.7% of all federal employees are black, their representation is way higher in some states. The participation of a black worker in state and federal employment is the highest in Georgia (43.8%), Louisiana (37.6%), Mississippi (34.8%) and Tennessee (34.6%). Averting a minimum wage in the amount of USD 17.75 for federal contractors in those states where a big a part of the federal workforce is black, can have a very clear negative economic impact on the black community.

Earlier evaluation of the minimum wage in the amount of USD 15 for federal contractors showed that a big percentage of people that would receive wage increases were coloured employees, including many black employees, often at work in the lower remuneration sector under federal agreements. The winning of this pay floor threatens disproportionately with the damage to those employees and potentially expands existing racial differences when it comes to income and wealth.

Trump’s administration claims that its principles give priority to American robots. However, the dismissal of the federal contractor of the minimum wage is according to the model decision that undermines wage standards for people from the working class.

Advertisement

Supporters of the working force claim that this movement is contrary to the claims of supporting American employees, leaving many vulnerable to potential salaries. Existing wage protection pursuant to the Act on the Service Agreement (SCA) and Davis-Bacon ACT (DBA) may not properly compensate for these employees, because their wage levels could also be lower and usually are not all the time usually adapted to inflation.

The repeal also introduces uncertainty for contractors and instability of the affected labor.

It is predicted that Trump’s decision to cancel the executive order raising the minimum wage for federal contractors will cause disproportionate damage to black employees, especially in the United States with a high percentage of black federal employees.

Rolling threatens to scale back wages, reduce financial security and potentially exacerbation of racial economic differences, increasing concerns about the involvement of administration in fair economic possibilities.

Advertisement

(Tagstranslat) minimum wage

This article was originally published on : www.blackenterprise.com
Continue Reading

Business and Finance

Meet the same guys of the Ole line

Published

on

By


Waiting for things or possibilities will be time consuming and annoying; However, if you have got at the least USD 40, you’ll be able to call one of Robert Samuel’s guys themselves, and they’ll do it for you.

Called by a compatriot from New York, the same guys were seen for people for luxurious samples, holes in the restaurant, and recently the Sean “Diddy” Combs housing. With many good hustle and bustle visible on the web, Samuel began his concert in 2013 during the madness of “Cronut” Croissant-Donut, and now he has 45 employees on his letter and charges from USD 25 to 37.50 USD per hour.

While people attempt to give you how To make a fast zlotySamuel says it’s about using what’s around you. “Always watch out for everything around you. When people complain, just put on a thoughts of thinking and check if you have a solution to what they are complaining about,” said the owner of the company

Advertisement

“You would probably shock yourself and be on the edge of the next steps.”

His journey began while working as a business representative at AT & T. After nervously that he intended to miss the commission control with the time of the recent edition of the iPhone 5, he decided to comfort himself by publishing an commercial on Craigslist, offering his services to attend in a queue to get one. Three hours later, Samuel was employed only in order that the customer would inform him that he placed a web-based order when he arrived forward.

Then he sold his place in the queue for $ 100, giving the bulb power in his head – and leaving $ 300 in his pocket. “I said,” Well, what can I do? Wait some time. I did lots of sitting on the pavement, “recalls Samuel. “So I created accounts on social media and regularly began.”

His journey even took him outside the NYC limit. Samuel found himself on the plane to face in a queue for the client at the latest meeting of Berkshire shareholders in Berkshire Hathaway in Omaha, Nebraska, at the starting of May 2025. However, the scene of the courtroom became lucrative for his activities, covering the trials of Bankman, Ghislaine Maxwell, and even President Donald Trump in 2024.

According to members of the Samuel team, they’d to fight women I’m attempting to cut the line To take a take a look at Luigi Mangione, a person accused of killing the general director of Unitedhealthcare Brian Thompson. “It was freezing, women tried to limit,” said Brandon Sutton.

Advertisement

Sutton and two colleagues, Tim and Brian, survived frosty in New York temperatures, because their anonymous customer paid them USD 25 per hour. Regardless of what his clients employ their team, Samuel says that he wouldn’t wish to do the rest, because he can “realize people’s dreams.” “It’s the beauty of bringing joy to people, doing something as simple as waiting in a queue,” said Samuel.

(Tagstransate) Luigi Mangione

This article was originally published on : www.blackenterprise.com
Advertisement
Continue Reading
Advertisement

OUR NEWSLETTER

Subscribe Us To Receive Our Latest News Directly In Your Inbox!

We don’t spam! Read our privacy policy for more info.

Trending