The Washington Post - USA (2022-05-24)

TUESDAY, MAY 24 , 2022. THE WASHINGTON POST EZ RE A21

TUESDAY Opinion

I

generally don’t seek financial wisdom

from college students, so when I be-

gan to hear last year from my kids that

their classmates were putting money

into cryptocurrencies, I got concerned.

With all due respect, this is not, as a rule, a

financially knowledgeable or savvy crowd.

When one of my sons asked skeptically

whether it wasn’t just the latest Dutch

tulip craze, a fellow student said it was

different — “You need to know when to get

out.”

Well, it might not be so different after

all, because it turns out many people lack

that ability. When TerraUSD, a stablecoin

— that is, a cryptocurrency that is sup-

posed to be pegged to the dollar or another

asset — lost almost all its value this month,

it happened so fast that many investors

lost whatever they had in the market.

Another stablecoin, DEI, went as low as

52 cents, instead of the dollar promised.

Bitcoin itself, which is not pegged to any

currency, is down more than 50 percent

from its high point last fall.

In many cases, it’s those who can least

afford to take this sort of loss who are

taking the hit. Crypto has been aggressive-

ly marketed as a chance to catch up to

groups who felt left behind in the forever

unequal United States. Over and over,

partisans declared that blockchain would

be a force for financial equity, empower-

ing people traditionally shut out of Ameri-

can wealth-building mechanisms, such as

housing or the stock market, by race or

lack of capital.

Matt Damon proclaimed “Fortune fa-

vors the brave,” for Crypto.com, an ex-

change platform where people can buy

and sell more than 200 cryptocurrencies,

in a commercial that aired during the

Super Bowl. (He’s now, in rather less brave

fashion, declining to answer NBC News’s

questions about it.) Kim Kardashian

shilled for a coin, one that soon dropped

by 98 percent. Politicians made the argu-

ment that crypto would make the finan-

cial world more equitable. Rep. Ritchie

Torres (D), who represents a low-income

district in the Bronx, called it a “profound-

ly progressive cause.”

Please. This is, at best, speculation. For

all the claims the blockchain will revolu-

tionize finance, the only thing it’s so far

improved on is the ability to launder cash

and transfer money as part of other illegal

activities. An inflation hedge? A theory that

didn’t pan out. A substitute for cash? Try

using it. It’s difficult and time-consuming,

and I promise you you’ll flee back to

traditional currency immediately.

The issues go on. Regulation is light to

nonexistent. Theft and fraud are rampant,

and victims have no recourse. If your

credit card is jacked, you’re on the hook

for only $50, but if your multimillion-

d ollar crypto wallet is picked, you are SOL,

as they say online. And for all the talk of

letting everyone get in on the action,

slightly more than 25 percent of bitcoin is

held by 0.01 percent of investors in it.

Yet 1 out of 5 Americans old enough to

invest took the bait, many who couldn’t

afford the risk. Poll after poll finds the

young more likely to embrace the sector

than the middle-aged and older people,

and Blacks more than Whites. And one

other thing: Half began putting money

into the sector in 2021, according to a

survey released by Grayscale Investments,

a crypto management firm — in other

words, when crypto was at record highs.

(A survey conducted last fall by Cardify, a

market research firm, found only 14 per-

cent had been invested in the sector for

more than two years.)

None of this should inspire confi-

dence. That’s true whether you sincerely

believe the world has yet to harness the

power of the blockchain, or if you believe,

as the wits on Twitter put it, that the

blockchain and its cryptocurrencies are

Beanie Babies for Bros, disguised by

techno-libertarian gibberish.

Even if all the potential for Web 3.0 is

realized, and the blockchain is its primary

architecture, that doesn’t make this stuff a

good play. The railroad was a revolution-

ary technology in 19th-century America

that created untold fortunes for a lucky

few, but about 25 percent of railroad

companies landed in bankruptcy after the

Panic of 1873. The same thing happened

again after the Panic of 1893.

The dot-com bubble offers a similar

lesson: Amazon did so well that its found-

er now owns this newspaper, but Pets.com

is a punchline. As Securities and Ex-

change Commission Chair Gary Gensler

recently put it when discussing crypto, “I

don’t think there’s a long-term viability for

five or six thousand private forms of

money.”

It is a mark of, well, marks that they

think they can outsmart all this — they

will pick the cryptocurrency that both

survives and soars, or will know the pre-

cise right moment to get out. They can’t all

be right.

Crypto hits that American sweet spot,

where cynicism meets utter naivete, and

where everyone thinks the sucker at the

table is someone else. By the time many

discover they are the greater fool, it is

much too late to do anything about it. That

in many cases they are people who are

already getting a raw deal just makes it

that much more painful.

HELAINE OLEN

No, you’re not

the one who

will beat the

crypto crash

P

resident Biden’s declaration on

Monday that the United States

would defend Taiwan if China

attacks is just the latest sign he

is shifting U.S. policy toward confront-

ing and containing the Communist

nation. That’s the right approach, and

he needs to rearm faster and maintain

U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods to make it

stick.

The United States has long practiced

“strategic ambiguity” with respect to

Chinese designs on Taiwan. Foreign

policy strategists have believed this

would effectively deter an invasion

while maintaining relations with Bei-

jing. So long as China acted in a positive

manner, this was a defensible strategy.

But Chinese President Xi Jinping’s

increasingly aggressive behavior makes

the policy untenable. Taiwan, like

Ukraine in Europe, is a flash point in a

contest between the United States and

an autocratic power. If the United States

chose not to aid Ukraine in its time of

need, our European allies — who recog-

nized the threat a Russian-conquered

Ukraine would pose to their security —

would question our commitment to

them. So it is with Taiwan; if the United

States won’t defend a longtime, demo-

cratic friend, other allies in Asia would

call our commitment into question.

Biden’s public commitment is some-

thing Japan, our most important ally in

the northern Pacific region, has wanted

to hear. Former prime minister Shinzo

Abe specifically called for this immedi-

ately following Russia’s invasion of

Ukraine. Former Japanese deputy

prime minister Taro Aso also said Japan

would consider a Chinese invasion of

Taiwan a direct threat. It is surely no

coincidence that Biden made his state-

ment in Tokyo at a joint news confer-

ence with Japanese Prime Minister

Fumio Kishida. This reassures Japan

that its own military buildup to counter

China’s threat will be part of a concert-

ed, U.S.-led effort.

Building such an effort has been a

consistent goal for Biden since his

inauguration. His trip to Asia will

continue this activity, including a pro-

posal to build a 12-nation trade pact

that excludes China. The new frame-

work falls short of a full Pacific trade

deal, but it does further commit the

United States to economic engagement

with nations such as India, Japan and

South Korea, which would serve as

essential alternatives for Western in-

vestment. That would make it easier for

the United States and other Western

firms looking to decouple from China to

follow through.

But this initiative cannot succeed

without more from Biden. The nascent

military network he is building needs

U.S. assets to ensure regional suprema-

cy, and those assets cannot be commit-

ted without a faster modernization and

rearmament of the U.S. military. All of

our allies are quickly increasing their

military capacities, yet Biden has only

proposed a 4 percent increase in spend-

ing this year. That doesn’t even match

the inflation rate, much less provide for

the new planes, ships and other equip-

ment our aging military sorely needs.

Biden’s words on Taiwan will prove

hollow if his deeds don’t match them.

The president’s effort to create a soft

landing space for Western firms leaving

China will also founder if he lifts the

tariffs that the United States currently

levies on Chinese goods. These tariffs

send a signal to U.S. firms that invest-

ments in China have social costs. And it

tells them to find another source of the

raw materials or goods they purchase.

The more U.S. firms do that, the less

American consumers underwrite Chi-

na’s economy. That, in turn, reduces its

growth rate, forcing it to choose be-

tween its military and domestic needs.

Cutting back on either will weaken the

Communist government; that’s a good

thing for the United States and its

democratic allies.

Some economists argue that remov-

ing the tariffs will reduce inflationary

pressures (though most of them sup-

ported removing tariffs before inflation

emerged). In reality, inflation — though

a serious economic problem — is largely

unrelated to tariffs. Ideological devo-

tion to free-trade fundamentalism is

what is driving the anti-tariff effort, not

concerns about rising prices.

Confronting China’s rise is the single

most important foreign policy chal-

lenge facing the United States. It makes

no sense to confront China militarily

while bolstering it economically. Should

China decide to wage war with the

United States today, it would be doing

so with modern weaponry purchased

with U.S. money and often built with

U.S.-designed technology. No president

would want to face an American public

under such circumstances.

Biden has surprised many of his

conservative critics with his harsher-

than-expected policy toward China. But

in for a dime, in for a dollar. Biden

should ratchet up military and eco-

nomic pressure on Beijing and fully

abandon the failed approach of the past.

HENRY OLSEN

Biden is right

to say the U.S.

should defend

Taiwan

BY MARY EBERSTADT

A

rchbishop Salvatore Cordile-

one’s pastoral letter, or notifica-

tion, to House Speaker Nancy

Pelosi that she is barred from

receiving Communion in the Archdio-

cese of San Francisco amounts to a

depth charge beneath the surface of the

Roman Catholic Church. It makes clear

that the phrase “pro-abortion Catholic”

is an oxymoron. Pressure will likely

increase on Catholic bishops elsewhere

to do what Cordileone has just accom-

plished: articulate what is indisputably

church law.

Many people inside and outside the

United States will reject that conclu-

sion. They include inveterate anti-

C atholics, abortion-first feminists and

activists of all kinds who want the Cath-

olic Church to stop being Catholic. Even

so, the archbishop’s bracing stand for

principle is a plus not only for the

church but for all Americans regardless

of belief. This is so for three reasons.

First, any clarification of facts is its

own virtue. The letter to Pelosi, along-

side the archbishop’s accompanying let-

ters to priests and the laity, calmly

informs others what Catholicism actu-

ally teaches about some subjects. In an

age when more and more people are

unchurched, this is itself a public serv-

ice. The letters say, in effect, The cate-

chism professes this. The archbishop’s

letter to the laity quotes this utter non-

equivocation from Pope Francis: “Every

child who, rather than being born, is

condemned unjustly to being aborted,

bears the face of Jesus Christ.” Also

clarified is another teaching worth reit-

erating at a time of rising seculariza-

tion: Everyone sins, and there is no such

thing as an unforgivable sin. But lead-

ing others to sin, repeatedly and impen-

itently, is uniquely grave.

A second reason to welcome the arch-

bishop’s intervention has nothing to do

with religion and much to do with a

political deformation that likewise

needs correcting. Since the 1960s, liber-

als have claimed — without cause — to

speak for all womankind on this issue

when the reality is far more complex. In

2016, for example, Pelosi called Republi-

can attempts to defund Planned Parent-

hood an “insult to the intelligence and

judgment of women.” On May 9, after

the leak of Supreme Court Justice Sam-

uel A. Alito Jr.’s draft opinion that would

overturn Roe v. Wade , her news release

sounded the theme repeatedly: “Repub-

licans would rip away women’s right to

make the most intimate and personal

decisions.... America’s daughters will

have less freedom than their moth-

ers.... The stakes for women... could

not be higher.” The speaker also played

the women’s card on behalf of abortion

on Mother’s Day, saying on “Face the

Nation” that “the court has slapped

women in the face.”

In a nation that prizes diversity, a

reminder that no speaker should pre-

sume to speak for all women is another

good thing.

Finally, the archbishop’s notification

might mark the beginning of the end for

another experiment run amok: the no-

tion that Catholics can simultaneously

rattle rosary beads in public while work-

ing overtime against bedrock teachings.

This course correction, too, is all to

the good, especially as the generation

responsible for yesterday’s drift moves

on. Pelosi and President Biden repre-

sent a fading faction of American Cath-

olics. Their guiding star was a speech

delivered by Mario Cuomo, then the

governor of New York, at the University

of Notre Dame in 1984. Though philo-

sophically scant, it greatly influenced

Catholics eager to do what Cuomo pio-

neered: project public ambivalence

about abortion, even while laboring to

ensure women’s access to abortion.

The forbidding of abortion dates to

the earliest days of the church. The

phrase “pro-choice Catholic” should no

more run trippingly off the tongue than

“carnivorous vegetarian,” say, or “ram-

paging pacifist.” Love the church or hate

it, enhanced coherence is a good thing.

In reality, “personally opposed to

abortion” has meant nothing more than

surrendering one restriction after an-

other. Biden abandoned the limitations

of the Hyde Amendment while he and

other Democrats have lately gone so far

as to push the ghoulish Women’s Health

Protection Act, which would have gone

beyond even Roe v. Wade. Pro-lifers

have argued for decades that it is impos-

sible to draw lines around fetal life. By

declaring that the only real stop sign is

infanticide, today’s pro-choicers have

proved them right.

For many years, some Catholics in

public life have been enjoying illicit

dual religious citizenship — pro-church

on Sunday yet followers otherwise of a

gnostic creed that deems abortion an

untouchable totem.

Now, thanks to Archbishop Cordile-

one, the “personally opposed” option is

less viable. Public figures who want

simultaneously the political benefits of

“choice” and the personal consolations

of being Catholic might have to decide

once more which of these two masters

they will serve. A new kind of choice is

upon them.

The writer holds the Panula Chair in

Christian Culture at the Catholic Information

Center in D.C. and is a senior research fellow

with the Faith & Reason Institute.

Catholics ‘personally opposed’

to abortion? That’s a fallacy.

STEFANI REYNOLDS/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and abortion rights advocates rally outside the U.S. Capitol on May 13.

Y

ou’ve bought a Peloton for cardio.

You’ve tried out CrossFit for

strength. You’re going to yoga for

flexibility, and maybe you’re de-

toxing to balance your microbiome. Yet

your wellness journey feels incomplete.

You’re still lonely, still anxious. Where’s

the workout for... y our soul?

That’s the gap that Peoplehood, a new

company from SoulCycle founders Eliza-

beth Cutler and Julie Rice, aims to fill.

“Introducing relational fitness,” People-

hood proclaims on its minimalist website,

“an entirely new concept with one goal: to

help you feel better. ” This wellness venture,

the company promises, will be “a place to

grow personally, together.”

It offers (slightly) more detail on its

Instagram: “Peoplehood is the spiritual

practice of connected conversation. Our

Gathers are 55-minute group conversation

experiences led by trained Guides in our

digital sanctuary.” A New York Times re-

porter testing out a Peoplehood course (the

venture is still in beta) described the “gath-

er” as a session in which “strangers discuss

their deepest hopes and fears” and engage

in breathing exercises and light stretches.

So is it group therapy? Is it a cult? Is it

Alcoholics Anonymous in fancier rooms?

The key is in the language: guided

spirituality in a sanctuary. Peoplehood

introduces itself as a new kind of exercise.

But if you look more closely, it’s clear that

what’s being sold is church.

The fact that there’s a potential market

for this speaks to what our society is

lacking. But the venture itself — at least in

the details it has revealed so far — models

the biggest problems with how we’ve tried

to fill the gap.

Conventional churchgoing is down and

continues to fall. At the end of 2021, the

Pew Research Center reported that rough-

ly 3 in 10 American adults were religiously

unaffiliated, a share 6 percentage points

higher than it was five years before and 10

percentage points higher than it was 10

years earlier. The drops in affiliation were

most apparent in Protestant Christian

denominations, with millennials leading

the decline.

But numbers don’t tell the whole story.

A lack of shared spiritual practice means

that some of the most valuable benefits of

taking part in an established religious

community — connection, transcen-

dence, a sense of larger purpose — are also

on the decline. And the pain is evident.

While religious participation has de-

creased, depression and anxiety, fueled by

a sensation of purposelessness and lack of

meaning, are on the rise. Responding to a

2018 survey by the Kaiser Family Founda-

tion, 1 in 5 Americans reported that they

always or often felt lonely or socially

isolated — something the covid-19 pan-

demic has only made worse.

So in strides Peoplehood — ready to tap

into a market. “We realized that connec-

tion should be its own product,” one of its

founders told the Times. “We are modern

medicine for the loneliness epidemic.”

But to turn something into a “product”

means modifying it for mass-market pal-

atability. And in this case, that looks like

emptying a religious experience of the

rigor, expectation and commitment that

gives it meaning.

Peoplehood’s tone is studiously non-

denominational and stringently open-

ended, without a hint of judgment or

expectation. The word “love” features

heavily in its meticulously branded so-

cial media posts, as do appeals to “listen”

and “center yourself.” The occasional

Martin Luther King Jr. quote shows up,

signaling social justice bona fides with-

out being too alienating. “The problem

isn’t you ,” Peoplehood’s website coos, “it’s

just life .”

Here’s the thing: The religious struc-

tures Peoplehood is attempting to emu-

late kindle purpose by asking things of

their adherents — hard things. They culti-

vate meaning by providing ethical frame-

works and moral visions to strive for that

are not solely opt-in consumables. Ideally,

they push us to think outside of ourselves,

to not be ruled solely by our own desires,

to develop a sense of obligation toward

others.

This is the opposite of woo-woo fitness

movements that suggest we don’t really

need to change ourselves — we just need

to talk it out (in a hip, branded “gathering”

space, of course).

An experience with the sole object of

“helping you feel better” may be attractive

in the short term, but it’s unlikely to fulfill

the deep longings that may draw people to

try it out in the first place.

And in a worst-case scenario, the “scal-

ing” and “growth” of a for-profit venture

based on deep insecurities will depend on

seeding more of them. The ability to sell

connection, after all, depends on making

it scarce.

For all its trendy branding, People-

hood’s commoditized church is merely

religion in an impoverished, attenuated

form. If it succeeds? It’ll only confirm the

depth of our collective desperation.

CHRISTINE EMBA

From the founders of SoulCycle,

a new (flawed) kind of church