□■□■ Islamic Banking □■□■
In 1983, the first Islamic Bank (the Bank Islam Malaysia Berhad) was established in Malaysia through the introduction of the Islamic Banking Act. They are not recognised by a number of non-Islamic nations, including India.

In late 2008, a committee on Financial Sector Reforms, headed by former RBI governor Raghuram Rajan, had stressed on the need for a closer look at the issue of interest-free banking in the country and supported Islamic Banking system in India.

The RBI had in February, 2016 sent a copy of the IDG report to the finance ministry and recommended an "Islamic window" in conventional banks for gradual introduction of Sharia-compliant banking.

As per report:-
"In our considered opinion, given the complexities of Islamic finance and various regulatory and supervisory challenges involved in the matter and also due to the fact that Indian banks have no experience in this field, Islamic banking may be introduced in India.

"Initially, a few simple products which are similar to conventional banking products may be considered for introduction through Islamic window of the conventional banks after necessary notification by the government," it had said in a letter to the ministry.

1/13

$Band vs $link dep dive.

In many if not most use cases band protocol will be used ALONGSIDE that of #chainlink. $Band has a stronghold in South East Asia and will also generally pull it's data from different sources than link.

2/13
They are both working on verifying data validity right now but to answer the question plainly, there is not going to be one #Blockchain solution in any of the fields to rule them all, this is a perfect example of two block chains that will work in tandem with each other.

3/13
$link has seen mass adoption and band has a long way to go, but by the look of who is invested in #Band (sequoia capital) and the fact that they are already being used in conjunction with each other, I see a bright future for this #chainlink ally! (Not competitor).

4/13
These definitely are in the same market, but don't let that worry you, $Band does differentiate itself enough to make this more of an oligopoly than a monopoly. I see more financial gains in band if you invest now, but of course there is no reward without risk.

5/13
#Bandchain has the bonus of being built on cosmos technology that will allow it to easily interconnect with other blockchains and make it easier to be an oracle source for other non-Ethereum based smart contracts that need a decentralized oracle.

I just saw a thread about foster care, which did not paint an accurate picture of why children are removed, foster parent "salary", etc.

As a foster parent I have a few words about the experience.

Content and trigger warning, there will be talk of severe child abuse.

1/x

First, I want to talk about motivation for fostering.

Different people are motivated differently, so I can only speak for my family.

We originally wanted to adopt children because we can't have our own.

While researching adoption, we learned about fostering.

2/x

We felt we had room in our lives to take in kids who needed a place to go. So we shifted our focus.

Since then we have had several children come and go. Each situation was different, and I will get to that.

3/x

Regarding the "salary" we get: there is no salary.

We do receive money to cover some of the costs we incur, like paying for medical care, buying them clothes, etc.

It is not anywhere near the quoted $39K.

4/x

All told, we generally end up going out of pocket to cover all expenses.

We take kids under 3, and as any parent can tell you, diapers, clothes, food, formula, various medical costs... It all adds up really fast.

5/x

1/14 Now that everyone and their mother is talking about $LUNA & $MIR my message is

We don't need the money

This is why

👇

2/14 Vast majority of crypto assets have insignificant or no adoption at all. The few with the highest adoption are at best very good speculation bets.

3/14 #Ethereum is the King of platforms and today there is no competition even close the liquidity and usage. All this activity is not reflected in $ETH itself and that is why EIP 1559, a proposal to change the economic model is a constant debate.

4/14 Looking at the $ETH example at this point we can conclude the ideal asset needs two important factors

1. Adoption
2. Good value capture

High adoption without a good value capture is not ideal and vice versa

5/14 @terra_money is one of the world's most highly adopted chains with millions of dollars in "real world transactions".

What does this mean and how is this aligned with $LUNA token holders?

On Monday, we submitted a letter to the US Treasury on the proposed rulemaking by FinCEN. We are committed to working with FinCEN to facilitate the adoption of digital assets along with widespread compliance and AML regulations.

Some highlights from the letter:

The limited time to provide comment deprives FinCEN of important feedback from the industry, resulting in less effective rules that create significant barriers to widespread compliance. This is a sharp departure from ordinary comment procedures and established practice.

The proposed rule raises serious practical and technical concerns that reveal robust industry feedback and industry engagement is necessary before effective implementation is possible. Some key concerns raised in our letter include….

The recordkeeping and reporting requirements mandate that Virtual Asset Service Providers differentiate between hosted and “unhosted” wallets without defining these terms and acknowledgement of the challenges faced in differentiating transactions that involve unhosted wallets.

A mandate that VASPs obtain name, address, and other unique counterparty info to unhosted wallet transactions would be the first Bank Secrecy Act rule commanding an institution to obtain specific info about customers’ counterparties with whom the institution has no relationship.

After needlessly arguing over the effect of discount rate and inflation, I decided to analyze its impact on the credit market myself. I used SBP monthly data from its website (stock). Flow data would have been better but I worked with what was available.

A thread.

Government borrowing was impacted by the discount rate. At 13.25%, GoP borrowed appears to have stopped increasing. As the size of private-sector borrowing is smaller than GoP borrowing, we will look at private-sector borrowing separately.

Private sector borrowing: stand-alone and starting the left axis from Rs.3 trillion so that changes are visible. It appears private sector borrowing kept increasing till Dec 18 when the discount rate was raised to 10%.

SBP started decreasing discount rate in March 2020 along with some other initiatives to spur growth. But now it was too late. Pandemic had struck. Private sector borrowing continued to fall. You can read about SBP initiatives here

The impact of SBP discount rate is obvious here if we look at it YoY. Credit to Private sector continued to grow till Dec 2018. Growth in credit clocked at 16% and 21% in 2017 and 2018. After that SBP's moves up or down stopped having any impact. 4% growth in 2019 and 0% in 2020

Lemme do some quick back of the envelope math about wages.

On a busy day at the pizza place, we'd have the following crew:

Drivers: $2/hr Tip Wage - 44 man-hours
Insiders: $8/hr - 20 man-hours
Managers: $12/hr - 22 man-hours

For a total of ~$512. Aiming for ~15-20% of sales. /

That works out to ~17% on a ~$3000 night, so that's bang-on target.

Let's say we raised everybody there to a $15/hr wage.

We'd end up adding $778 to labor for the day.

More than doubling! That sure sounds like a lot!

But hang on a second.

Let's assume for easy math that what we're selling is $10 one-topping large pizzas.

For 3k, we're selling 300. We've got to divide up that 778 between the pizzas.

That raises the price of each pizza from $10 to $12.59.

"That's... well, not huge, but it's still more money!"

Definitely! But, here's something important.

The price of a pizza has actually gone down.

Remember, money isn't real! It's a representation of the time worked.

The vast majority of the people we had been selling that pizza to weren't making $15 an hour before. We were in a college town, that manager wage of $12/hour was a /good/ wage. WE were buying that pizza.

1/ A thread on subsidies and the unfortunate need for it until a total financial and economic restructuring has been completed. (Disclaimer: 40-tweet thread ahead)

2/ 17th of October 2019 , Lebanon witnesses the start of a revolution, people took to the streets to express their anger and frustration towards a political class they deemed corrupt and inept at governing.

3/ Little did they know the depth of the hole this class had put them in, little did they know the real scope of the squandered funds they oversaw.

4/ None of them even thought for a second, that a systemic looting was happening under their nose, one that used their own life savings.

The road to restructuring will be long and hard, whenever the country actually takes it.

5/ We know that we will need to muster all the assets we have, tangible and abstract. We know we will have to sacrifice a lot more.

But we also know that a total collapse due to the retraction of subsidies might make the situation irrecoverable, and cause unimaginable pain.

@paulbuitink 1-Since the ECB has singularly failed to provide financial stability to the eurozone, but instead was responsible for record credit boom-busts in Ireland, Portugal, Spain etc. followed by vast unemployment and sovereign debt crises, why should the ECB be given any FURTHER powers?

2-Nobody needs CBDC. There is no demand for it. Please provide actual evidence that there is popular demand for it. (NB Demand for bitcoin is no such proof; demand for cash is no such proof, especially since CBDC is designed to abolish cash for negative rate/expropriation policy)

3-Conflict of interest. ECB is banking regulator in the eurozone. Now it is seriously contemplating compromising its umpire role as regulator by stepping into the arena and wanting to directly compete against the banks, which are regulated by the ECB (CBDC=current accounts)...

3b Isn't this anti-competitive; unfair competition? Throws new light on the ECB's past 20 years of policies, which have been aggressively anti-(small)-bank. As the ECB now admits it wants to compete with the banks, have its policies of killing so far 4,800 banks been intentional?

4-ECB claims that CBDC may increase financial stability, but it has been the ECB's disastrous policies that have caused dramatic financial instability over the entire period of the ECB's existence. Why should anyone believe the ECB's claim to aim at financial stability?...

1. Year End Tax Tips:

Yes, there is still time to save money on taxes for 2020....even today.

Here is a list of some of your top options:

A) You can pay your kids up to age 18 up to $12,400 and if they have no other income, they owe NO federal taxes, but YOU get the deduction

2. Next up, you can prepay your expenses up to 1 year, using the IRS Safe Harbor:

This allows cash-basis taxpayers to prepay and deduct qualifying expenses up to 12 months in advance without challenge, adjustment, or change by the IRS.

3. Qualifying expenses include, among others:

-lease payments on business vehicles

-rent payments on offices and machinery

-and business and malpractice insurance premiums

4. Buy Office Equipment

With bonus depreciation now at 100 percent along with increased limits for Section 179 expensing,

buy your equipment or machinery and place it in service before December 31 and get a deduction for 100 percent of the cost in 2020.

5. Qualifying bonus depreciation and Section 179 purchase examples

-new and used personal property such as machinery, equipment, computers, desks, furniture, and chairs (and certain qualifying vehicles).

I'm picking up a stand up desk since someone went and filled my bin.

For years, more and more services that should be statutory and government funded have had to be replaced with charities and donations because the govt stops funding them. To the point where we are literally donating now to schools, NHS, foodbanks & shelter.

Govt isn’t even providing basic human rights at this point, and we are all expected to be so happy when someone walks up a mountain or releases a song to donate to a service that we literally pay taxes for already.

No one should be having to raise money for stat services.

But it’s framed as positive isn’t it? An elderly man raises millions for the NHS and he’s a bloody hero. He is. Of course. But why on earth did he even need to do that? The NHS isn’t a charity. It’s supposed to be funded correctly to function.

People create choirs and release songs to raise millions for veterans who are left to die and suffer after service - and it’s all supposed to be a lovely gesture but the real crime is that the govt exploited these humans and then left them with absolutely nothing

People go out of their way to create shelters and accommodation charities and that’s brilliant - we are reliant on humans like this.

But why? Why should we be?

Aren’t humans entitled to safe accommodation and shelter? Why isn’t the govt held accountable for refusing to provide?