Bitcoin Forum

Those "money" are not issued. The value is stolen from everyone else.

You are assuming that the government actions are always good for the people. They are not, only for some.

Printing money is theft and therefore fiat money is inherently immoral.

EDIT: just noticed this has been answered about 20 times way better than I just did.

bits, not cents.

yes I know :-) , we will have few layers on top of the bitcoin protocol and no one will have to archive 20 TB/DAY :-)
... but we do not have it today :-)

Why do a lot of people keep wanting bitcoin to work for buying small mundane things?  It's wealth storage, security, ease of transfer.  What about current monetary systems makes you want to use bitcoins for coffee.  You will never have your entire life in BTC.  That's silly.  There's investments, real estate ownership, heck even works of art so use bitcoin for what it's good at because it certainly isn't good at buying coffee since you can't trust 0-conf anyways.

When 20TB per day is needed it will probably be possible. Don't try to solve problems that haven't occurred yet. Just-in-time solutions are often best!

We want to access any web page without ads by just pushing 1 satoshi or whatever at the page as part of the http get request.

This cannot be repeated enough. It's the biggest scam on Earth and it's hidden in plain sight!

From time to time when some one saying bye bye, it is due for a rally :D

If I have one piece of gold, I can print a note that is backed by this piece of gold, this is not theft. But as long as the note is circulating, I must keep the gold, because it can come back to me anytime to redeem the gold. (And I have to destroy the note after I give out the gold, since now they don't have any value backing them anymore)

If I am going to make a product in future, I can print a note that is backed by this product, this is not theft either. But after the note started to circulate, I must make this product ready in time. Sooner or later the note will come back to me to redeem the product

However, the central bank today issue money without gold or a product in future as backing, they just print lots of notes and use those notes to purchase government bonds and assets, that is pure robbery and extremely immoral

Repetition does not make a false statement true.
Following your logic, if I buy a TV set and the producer makes just one more unit, you consider that act "theft".

For something which represents no value or utility whatsoever besides its scarcity (e.g. fiat money and Bitcoin) making more of it IS theft as it effectively reduces the only benefit it has. This is not true for a tv set which does have utility.

Fiat currency, unbacked by some commodity with utility/value, is the most silly thing ever. A $10 note means the government (Yes the FED is part of your government, whether they agree or not) owes you $10, but the government gets to decide what the actual value of that $10 is because they are the only ones with the power to do so. So they leverage this power by going into debt and devalue the unit ($) to reduce this debt. This is a process they can continue indefinitely and it's one of the biggest taxes around.

Yes, that is theft.

As you obviously know, the difference between a TV set and money is the TV itself *is* the property and money is just a note.  Steal either from me and I consider it wrong.  Producing additional TVs creates no burden on me per se.  Producing additional notes dilutes the value of mine.  This is trivial to understand and it is disingenuous to deny it.

If you play poker with someone and they put a note into the pot indicating they owe the bearer some amount, e.g. 1 of 10 chickens he owns.  If you win the pot then you expect to be able to collect sometime soon.  If enough of these notes end up in circulation then eventually it will exceed the 10 chickens; not everyone can collect and at best someone will get less than one whole live chicken.  Every new note the jerk writes dilutes your original note.  Now you'll make some noise about how the guy could just go get some more chickens to payoff the notes.  Is it stealing?  One wonders how it will go when he stands for final judgment.  Long before that folks will wise up and stop playing poker with him.

The comparison with the guy with the chickens is actually still to rosy. Change the situation a be that he doesn't actually own any chickens and it will resemble the real situation more closely.

The US federal government does have considerable chickens, er, assets and ability to collect more.  It is misrepresentative to imply less.

As we begin to play less poker with their notes, where do we find better ones?

Physical gold is a royal pain to play with; weight, volume, poor divisibility, etc., and besides which gold should be used for what it is best at, jewelry, electronics, etc.

What is the goal of starting this thread?

someone lost out big time on the swings lol

The underlying issue (which molecular and wachtwoord probably should've noted explicitly, since you apparently missed it) is that citizens are forced, through threat of prison (ie, violence), to use currency that gets debased. If that were not the case, there wouldn't be anything immoral about it, and it would be analogous to a company, whose stock you own, issuing more shares.

But we're forced to use these currencies through the requirement that we pay taxes in them (and other legal tender laws), so when we get diluted, we lose value/property. This is immoral because we're forced to use such currencies without explicit consent or choice, and the entities forcing us to do so intend to deprive us of the value of that asset through dilution. That they may think they're doing a net-good via said dilution is irrelevant; if someone takes your TV at gunpoint because it's "better for you" to not have a TV, that's still theft.

I'll re-iterate your definition of theft so you can cross-check it against the above:

Sure they do! Holding a Dollar note does NOT give me a claim to any of that however :(

Ah, got it.

you can say that for bitcoin too.

So many people hee complaing about the problem of diluted values, no backing etc. This is not a problem unless you have a lot of cash. Then go change it into stcks or bitcoins or whatever. And use cash only for exchange of goods. Problem solved.

Fiat money is not useful because of scarcity (although it can be). It is useful because it can be used as money.
But you're right about the TV, it is devalued a little less than your USD banknote if they produce more. It is devalued, though.

Let me repeat:
If your central bank issues more money or banks (or you, for that matter) create money by the process of lending, this is not theft. It's part of the utility of fiat money.
Let me put it like this: would you say it's okay for me to call you a thief if you lend someone a bitcoin?

Actually, it was a great idea that is still considered by the majority of economists to be one of the more important factors in the economic progress of modern civilization.



First of all, we're not talking about whether it's moral or immoral to be forced to use a currency. We're talking about whether it's theft or not.


Noone forces you to hold any currency, as far as I'm aware of U.S. legislation. That you are required to settle your taxes in USD is no more a hassle than the need for buying stamps if you want to use the U.S. postal service.

Do you mean the kind of economic progress where every 1% of GDP growth is accompanied by 2% growth in debt?  I fail to see how that is progress...

I would if I was actually able to lend someone something I didn't actually have. This is what banks do. Give me the power to print paper fiat for free and I will lend it to you at interest, no problem. :P

I would absolutely love to own stocks, etc., denominated in Bitcoin.  Stocks, etc., denominated in USD are vulnerable to arbitrary devaluation.  Hmm, or would the share price tend to go up to compensate?

me too. unfortunately i don't trust these fly-by-night bitcoin stock exchanges. just wouldn't feel secure. it's too bad.  :-\

No. That's not how the process of money creation by lending works.


This is not the way the FED or the ECB work.
I know that it is easy to believe that Ben Bernanke just "fires up the printing press" and produces Dollar banknotes, but even though that might actually happen, printing paper money is largely insignificant compared to e.g. setting the federal funds rate or quantitative easing.

By Keynesians, you mean.  ::)



.....

It's theft precisely because society is coerced into using it as money. That's the linchpin making the scam work.



Except that:

 - No one HAS to mail a letter via the USPS. You can use UPS or Fedex (at prices above a governmentally-mandated minimum, anyway.) If you work to live, as most of us do, you MUST send your FRNs to the federal government.
 - No one is forced to accept postage stamps as "legal tender for all debts, public and private."
 - No company pays their employees in postage stamps; or does business in stamps, thus incurring the burden of converting them to FRNs to pay their employees.
 - No one is forced through threat of war to purchase oil with postage stamps.
 - No one working for the federal, state or local governments of the U.S. is going to be paid in postage stamps.
 - Government contracts aren't settled in postage stamps.
 - Etc.

The nitpicking would be fine if we actually didn't see the distinction, or if it made a difference. What's being pointed out to you is that for all practical purposes, the distinction is irrelevant.

Would just using a new word work for you? How about we call the scam "inflatascrew"? When referring to fiat shenanigans, we'll just tell everyone, "losing wealth occurs because you're being 'inflatascrewed' by your government. It's pretty much the same as being stolen from, but with these distinctions..." Surely that would satisfy your desire for semantic accuracy--because it's not as if the real issue is that you feel being stolen from this way is totally acceptable, and the whole nitpick is a distraction from that, right?

But that's exactly how it works. You don't fool me anymore I am fully aware of how the system works nowadays. :)


I'm not just talking about what Ben Bernanke or the ECB does, I am talking about how all banks and their lending in general works. If you think this is how economy progresses or should progress, I can only laugh out loud and wish you good luck with that. I however will have no part of this screwed up economy anymore, and will talk to your kind again in a decade or so from now. :)

When it comes to fiat money, I don't see many Non-Keynesians argue as well.
There are economists who criticize fiat, but I tend to see them with minority. But I won't argue about that, because I don't really have numbers to back that claim.


I can tell you about a few fiat currencies that are not forced on people and that are commonly used.
The USD is one of them, the EUR another. In many countries across the world, it may even be illegal to use them, but they are used nonetheless.
Or how about a privately issued fiat currency that's accepted and traded worldwide? Think Bonus Miles.


I repeat: no one forces you to hold any currency, as far as I know.
That you're required to use it for a short period of time when it comes to settle your bills, is an inconvenience, no more, no less.
 

Okay, the nitpicking part is actually that "fiat is not theft".
It could be considered coercion, when you're forced to use it.
It could be considered fraud, if someone actually made a promise about its value and devalues it later on (but in reality, no one makes such a promise).


Let's just assume for a moment that I'm not nitpicking, but I actually disagree.
Fiat is a really good concept. I've used fiat all my life and it served me quite well. So did all the people I know.

Just because we like Bitcoin that much more today should not make us spread FUD about competition.

I just googled for a second and came up with this, it should help you understand:
http://money.howstuffworks.com/personal-finance/banking/bank1.htm (http://money.howstuffworks.com/personal-finance/banking/bank1.htm)

Oh please that's basic stuff and we all know about fractional reserve banking already. I'm not some uneducated ignorant fool you know. And it doesn't refute what I wrote earlier, the fact that banks lend out stuff they don't actually have. Just think about it, perhaps you will come to the same conclusion as me and many others already have. :)

If you find yourself with majority, rethink.

The bank has this "stuff".
In any common meaning of the word you could possibly think of.
They posses, have, hold, own, received, the money they lend.
They may not be the proprietor, but that's not necessary.

Here watch this and learn something yourself: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqvKjsIxT_8

Ok, I think a clarification is in order.

You seem to be using the term 'fiat' to mean 'unbacked.'
The rest of us are using the term 'fiat' to mean the official definition: "a formal authorization or proposition; a decree". Money forced on you by people with the power to compel you.

Considering that the first usage also covers bitcoin itself, perhaps we'd be better served by keeping to the second usage?



I'm sorry, but that's absurd.

When the coercion to use the money is that pervasive (and invasive,) people will also hold onto stashes of it. That's just human nature. And the people who make use of this scam know it.



The coercion makes it theft.

If Bob approaches Alice and *forces* her to accept his IOUs in exchange for her goods and services, and to use them in her dealings with others, then produces and distributes so many more IOUs that the ones Alice has are only worth a tiny fraction of their original value, you can argue all you want about how it's not theft but when he's locked up like a common thug for it, most of society will have little sympathy for him.

To argue that it's not theft because she didn't trade the IOUs off to Chuck quickly enough completely ignores the real issue, doesn't change the nature of Bob's actions, and is a pretty disturbing sentiment for someone to express.



Fiat, as defined by the second usage above, is NOT a good concept. You say it has served you and everyone you know quite well. I'd argue it has served you all abysmally.

Sure, you could make use of it. It was *functional*. It had to at least be that for the scam to work. But it also resulted in the loss of quite a significant portion of your wealth through inflation over just the last few decades. Worse, it didn't just cause that wealth to evaporate, it enabled the theft of that wealth by insiders who quite literally profited at your expense. I can only imagine you feel fiat has served you well because you've never had the real option of living in a (well-off) society that didn't revolve around it. And of course, those profiting from it would like to keep it that way.

Acknowledging the ills of fiat is hardly FUD. There's a reason 2008 happened and that the global economy is still on shaky ground. There's a reason depositors in Cyprus had a portion of their money directly stolen from their bank accounts, an action being seriously discussed now in other parts of Europe. What else would one expect to happen when a minority is granted the ability to steal from entire societies using a scheme that not only reduces the incentive to save and produce, but that's mathematically unsustainable in the first place?

Avoiding all that nonsense is kinda the entire point of Bitcoin.

You are not forced to accept fiat currency for goods and services you provide, only for settlement of debts.
And you are not forced to use fiat currency to buy goods and services from others.


Actually, like very many people, inflation has increased my overall worth, as I had more mortgage debt that savings, and that debt was also inflated away.

Take a hike and I'll take your coins now!  ;D

This argument is hilarious. The pro-fiat guy is great.  ;D ;D ;D

2% debt growth for every 1% GDP growth, yeah that's totally progress! Hahaha. Praise Ford for fiat.


Average lifespan of a fiat currency: 30 years

Current lifespan of USD (in its truly unbacked, unconvertible, wholly fiat form) 42 years

Now that's one outlier that's gonna get fucked.

In hindsight (after reading the page of thread following the page the quote is from), I realize I should've said: "Printing fiat money is theft and therefore fiat money is inherently immoral."

Yes, it's the partial removal of scarcity that constitutes the act of theft, not the production of the units. Otherwise mining bitcoins would be immoral.

Bitcoin will fade away eventually. It will take awhile but its inevitable.

Of course but
a) nobody profits from the inflation in Bitcoin
b) the inflation is outside the control of any party which could game it to their advantage
c) nobody is forced to used Bitcoin.  If someone doesn't see a value proposistion they can simply choose not to participate

None of those are true with national fiat currencies.

Correct, but only with something to replace it. And then its goes to <$10 adjusted for inflation.

I'm sure this has come up before, and the conclusion was that you cannot create your own coins.
You can create your own notes, as long as there is no intent/risk of confusion with 'real' money.

What do governments pay their soldiers, contractors and employees in? What do they pay tax returns, SS and other non-employee obligations in?

When purchase orders for tanks and ammunition (or staples and printer ink) are issued, what will be spent?

(The reference to her 'dealings with others' is a reference to the 'settlement of debts' portion.)



Hmm.

"like very many people"

Considering that inflation is a shell game, transferring wealth rather than inherently creating or destroying it, do you think that the majority benefits from inflation? Do you even feel that a large minority benefits?

If not, again presuming your inflationary gains via mortgage debt were enough to more than offset your inflation losses elsewhere, aren't you kind of admitting that you're simply one of the lucky ones who benefited? After all, it's not as if its possible for everyone to benefit from inflation if they all just take the same actions you did.

None of which has anything to do with whether you are forced to accept fiat for your goods and services. You aren't. You just don't get to sell tanks to the government, because you can't force them to pay in a currency you want.
If you are selling something I want, and only accept Bitcoin as payment, my options are either to pay in Bitcoin or not buy, I cannot force you to accept payment in fiat.

I think there are a small proportion of people whose savings vastly exceed their debts, and massively more people whose debts exceed their savings, or who are roughly neutral.

Let me see if I'm getting this.

My assertion is that fiat currencies are inherently bad. A scam. Theft.

The supporting argument I'm making is that due to government laws and actions, including legal tender laws, taxes and government spending, individuals are forced to use and accept their fiat, and hence society is coerced into using it, which is how the scam is enabled. I provided the examples of paychecks, obligations and the purchasing of tanks and staples.

And your response is that no one is literally forced to accept fiat for goods and services because no one ever has to sell the government anything.

Is that the entirety of it?



So... that's a "yes"?

And yet, you don't see how a system that encourages debt over savings could be problematic?

I'm not arguing your general point, but your specific one.
You said:You are not forced to accept fiat for your goods and services.

No, actually we are not forced to use USD.   For some things, yes.  Many countries ask for their taxes to be paid in their currency, but freely allow other moneys to circulate.  Banks in Austrailia handle many currencies.  Banks in US handle only USD, true.  But that does NOT force us to use USD.

The glass here is either half empty or half full, depending on how you look at it...

Yes, I understand that you're arguing the specific point.

And again, for clarification, I point out that you're trying to say that government does NOT force acceptance of their fiat for goods and services, and the reason you give for this isn't because the government doesn't use their fiat for all their interactions, but essentially that no given individual must of necessity interact with them. That when they acquire their goods and services, they don't overtly hold guns to people's heads as they hand over the check.

Alice wasn't just representative of an individual. She was also representative of any given society as a whole. And every society MUST interact with its government.

Please think about this very carefully:

What do you think would happen if the government requested bids for an interstate highway and every contractor refused to accept their money, demanding gold instead? What do you really think would happen if every gun manufacturer in the country suddenly refused to sell arms to the military, or to policemen? Do you *honestly* believe they'd just throw up their hands, shrug and say "oh well," and voluntarily expire as a "sovereign" entity? The very thought is ludicrous, and I'm sure you could dig up a historical example or two of exactly what happens when a government is denied in such a manner.

So your phrase "you are not forced to accept fiat for your goods and services" doesn't apply to society--it applies to me personally. Currently. Thanks. That changes everything.*

Is that all you were wanting to point out there?


*Yeah, that was snippier than it needed to be. Sorry.

Out of curiosity, where did you get the average lifespan number. Is there some kind of database of all historical fiat currency & its gold exchange rate somewhere, or something?

If one person has savings in the bank, someone else has debt in the same amount.  Sometimes, people have no way to repay their debts because the economy sucks.  When that happens, inflation reduces the principal so the saver can at least get some money back.  It also forces the saver to spend their cash which boosts the overall economy.

If my understanding is right, then inflation is good for everyone under certain circumstances.

Standard economic theory, which you may or may not agree with, says that a small, relatively constant, amount of inflation is the best answer for the economy. Large amounts of inflation, or fluctuating inflation, is bad, as it deflation.

The interesting question is how much?  In the 70s inflation was much higher than the 80s but growth was much much higher.  Today we have massive amounts of currency sloshing about and very low inflation.  I wonder how high inflation would need to go before that money was considered better invested in industry than sitting in government bond accounts.

It is certainly an oddity. Eventually all the QE must lead to inflation, surely?
But at the moment banks are simply sitting on the extra money to build capital reserves, and are not lending it out, so most of it isn't really entering the economy.
I fear there is going to be a nasty rebound at some point.

I actually agree with this. There are many areas for improvement in Bitcoin, and it is likely that a better method of transferring money will be developed in the future.

How would QE lead to inflation when there are so many factories to pick up demand?  Japan has had close to zero interest rates and humungous debts for over 20 years now and their inflation rate is very low.  My assumption is that prices are held down by the enormous supply of industrial production from China.  Here in the UK, there is huge spare capacity in factories.  you could print a billion pounds and prices of industrial goods would probably not rise.

Hmm in fact, they may well already have printed a billion  :P  Its probably why house prices are rising - there are no enough houses to go around and the market is held back by crazy planning/zoning laws.

Some points:

1. Bitcoin is currently in deflation not inflation (the little BTC inflation is defined by the protocol with 25 bucks for each block)

2. Printing fiat money is theft for sure because the inherent inflation (printing money is inflation) takes the buying value from all existing money of the same fiat sort

3. The statement 'little inflation drives the economy' is not the full truth. It implies that people are scared of loosing their money and put it back into the economy circulation. The bad side is that it also implies interest which feeds people who already own enough fiat money. And the real negative point with that again is that it creates a steady money flow from the poor debted people to the rich wealthy ones. More worse - if the state is debted (the current case) then the whole economy is threatened just by the inflation mechanics. -- One may argue that the Bitcoin deflation has a similar problem because the early adopters profit from the deflation value increase. That is true. But it is not a similar problem because the deflation slows down and may stop some day. Then nobody makes profits just from owning the Bitcoin anymore.

4. One very big problem is the equity covering quote for banks. In Germany it is 7%. That means if a bank has 7000Euro in its safe the bank is allowed to credit 100.000,- Euro to debitors. Inherently the money multiplies many times over a credit chain with multiple banks. This creates a big imbalance between real money and credited money with the well known risks - Lehman Brother was a typical szenario. With Bitcoin this is not possible - you cannot create virtual money - you own the Bitcoin or not - finish.

Housing is a good example of how increased money supply will lead to inflation, here house price inflation.
If banks and building societies start to loan more money, require lower deposits, lend to riskier customers, and so on, then more people will be able to afford to buy any given price range of house, therefore there will be more competition, therefore sellers will raise their prices and/or not accept the same level of discount.
Generally, as the amount of lending increases, and the cost of borrowing decreases, people will borrow more, and so buy more goods that they couldn't afford otherwise. They will replace their car now, rather than waiting another year, or two, for example.
Having mothballed production facilities, there will be a lag time before supply can catch up with demand, and in the meantime, prices will rise.
But at the moment banks aren't really lending more, but instead sitting on the money, plus people's uncertainty about the economy makes them more reluctant to take risks, so we aren't seeing those effects.
When the economy picks up, and banks lend again, it is hard to see how that won't translate to a jump in inflation.

I think you mean the other way around.
Bitcoin may eventually be deflationary, but currently it is much more inflationary than USD, EUR or GBP.
(In terms of money supply, I don't think there is any meaningful measure of pricing inflation for Bitcoin, because almost nothing is priced in it.)

No - I mean what I wrote. Bitcoin is far below its real potential current value. Since the inflation of Bitcoin is very low - 10 BTC every 10 minutes - it is in deflation mode.

You're contradicting yourself, surely?
If it has inflation, even if it is low, how can it also have deflation?

Anyway, your 'very low' inflation figures:
Total Bitcoins in existance: 11,856,350
Bitcoins created per year: 25*6*24*365 =  1,314,000
That is more than 10% increase in total Bitcoins in existance per year.

Lehman would not have gone under if it was typical.

http://www.prefblog.com/?p=2377

Its central issue was not leverage - it was AAA assets that were actually junk.

To call printing fiat money or inflation "theft" is injecting morality and emotion where it doesn't make sense.  Is it "theft" if a creditor can't repay their debts so the saver loses their capital?  Of course not.  Likewise its not theft if both parties have chosen to use fiat currency and inflation reduces the principal.  

I've never seen your particular use of the word "fiat", but that may be a language issue.
I tend to use the term "fiat" by the first two definitions, the third being a little too general for my taste.
Also, we seem to have a very different view of states/authorities. I don't see "people with the power to compel you" but rather a society with self-chosen rules.


If it's so attractive for them to hold it, I fail to see where they are forced. There's a huge difference between making a good offer that you willingly accept and forcing you to accept my offer.
Your whole argument is centered on the fact that "the government" forces you to hold their money. Which is clearly not the case. They force you to use it for certain acts like paying taxes etc., but it's perfectly legal for you to keep your live savings in whatever currency or commodity you prefer. It is highly convenient for you to keep at least a large share of your day-to-day savings in the greenback, which is why you actually hold on to your Dollars. But that's not being enforced by anybody. That the Dollar depreciates in value over time is a fact and probably even stated explicitly (actually, i'm unsure about the Dollar, but the Euro has a target inflation rate of 2%, which is no secret, but publicly announced). The choice is yours. No force involved.


Wrong again. If anything, taking value from you by force is robbery. This may seem like nitpicking on my side, but i think it is important to use the correct legalese when you accuse someone of something.


First of all, you're over exaggerating a lot here. Dollar inflation has been around 2-3% over the last decade, with spikes into the 5.x range and also short tendencies of deflation. That's a little worse than the situation of the Euro, but still a pretty stable currency for any practical use. Calling this "worth a tiny fraction of their original value" is like accusing someone of mayhem because he pinched you in the cheek.


I've been aware of the target inflation rate of 2% for at least the last 20 years of my life, which is even a little longer than the period of time where i had any significant income myself. The overall economic progress of the society i live in has given me access to a good school system, affordable, quality health care, decent housing, parenting needs for my sisters (i don't have kids of my own), a solid retirement plan for my parents, etc. I cannot deny, though, that over the last few decades things got a little worse where i live compared to the welfare state of the 70ies. Also, my own retirement plan looks grim, compared to what my parents could expect. But all in all, I cannot complain.

One of the key elements for the success of the economic system that made all this possible was a slightly inflationary currency which made hoarding a little less attractive than spending. That's just the kind of lubricant that keeps an economy's motor going.

If you think of profit in the very narrow sense of gathering more value, you might just keep to your theory of "inflation is theft". If you value your own quality of life over monetary accumulation, though, maybe you could get over it and think of that broader picture.


2008 did not happen because of fiat. Actually, fiat was not even damaged as badly by the outcome of the ongoing financial crisis as were other instruments of our economy. It got bruised, though, that's for sure.


I beg to differ. I'm (compared to the majority of the bitcointalk crowd) a longtime user and also holder of a tiny handful of bitcoins. I've never regarded bitcoin as a way of avoiding fiat. It can be complimentary currency, it's got benefits of its own, its elegant and useful in its own right, but the strength of bitcoin is not as a replacement of fiat money, but rather side by side with each other.

Actually, a lot of governments pay for their tanks in U.S. Dollars or Euros, not their own respective currencies ;)
In some countries, at least the presidential guards are paid in Dollars as well. :-X

This is absolutely right.  Bitcoin isn't useful for buying milk and potatoes and its never going to be.  Its very useful for doing stuff you don't want to talk about and as such its future is secure.  Just as we have Dollars, Pounds and Euros for use in various situations, we also have Bitcoin for use in the right circumstances.

I see inflation and deflation as independend concepts. Many people see inflation as the rise of prize levels - I just see it as the increasing amount of money (OK - in econmical terms maybe not 100% accurate). Deflation is the process of of an under valued currency adapting to its real buying value due to the limited amount of money (Again - maybe not 100% accurate in economic terms).  Economically the terms inflation (increasing prizes), disinflation (decreasing inflation) and deflation (decreasing prizes) are just bound to the prize level.

If you see inflation as increasing amount of money and deflation as the rising value of money then both concepts can exist side by side without contradiction which makes more sense.

Ok, but if you are going to use such non-standard meanings for terms, you might as well say so straight off (or find another word for it), to avoid wasting time, as we have just done.
A standard dictionary definition is:
Whereas disinflation is:


In which case I'm still confused as to how you think Bitcoin has a very low level of inflation.
More than 10% per year is not very low.

On January 29, 2009, Finance Minister Patrick Chinamasa announced that all Zimbabweans would be allowed to conduct business in any currency as a response to the hyperinflation crisis. Fromhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zimbabwean_dollar (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zimbabwean_dollar)

I could probably dig up dozens, if not hundreds of cases where a government simply had to accept the fact that their currency was no longer accepted by the people, but research is always a little time consuming.

Yes, governments have also reacted differently, namely by outlawing foreign currencies, leading to imprisonment and worse. No use denying that. But speculation on what would happen in the U.S. if it came to it - well,

This is now - wait for 2033 - then the inflation is very low:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/54/Total_bitcoins_over_time.png

If you compare this curve to the USD inflation curve you will see what I mean.

One remark on the term 'inflation' - we are talking about economics not physics. This term as many others undergoes a process and has never defined scientifically unambiguous - eg. http://bit.ly/16d4Aky (http://bit.ly/16d4Aky). But I see the point ...

Which is what I said in my original reply to you:

The modern concept of credit has empowered a large share of the general population and made our society much more pervious for members of their respective classes. The rise of the middle classes at the beginning of the modern ages compared to the middle ages was largely due to the possibility of acquiring wealth without owning land, enabled by lending.
Interest as part of the process of lending is not, contrary to common belief, a "freebie" for the haves from the have-nots. Also, interest is not created "out of thin air" but well-defined by the opportunity value of the credit.
Lending can make the rich richer and the poor poorer, but it also works the other way round.


The most common misunderstanding about Bitcoin is:

"there will never be more than 21 Million bitcoins". True or false?

Well, unfortunately, false for most use cases.

I've personally lent a bitcoin or two to someone.
For any economist in the world it is clear that i thereby created bitcoins.
Not "physical" or "digital" ones, sure, but "deposit" bitcoins.

In the future, banks might adopt Bitcoin. Let's just assume for the moment that they do, and that they treat it like any other good ol' currency. Legally, they are free to use fractional reserve on bitcoins the same way they do with the Dollar. And you damn well bet they will. After all, that's how they make money and get their little bonuses.
And people will use those "deposit" bitcoins, just the way they use their "deposit" Dollars and Euros today. And why wouldn't they? It served them well. So, for any practical reason, we should not think of the number of bitcoins as being limited to 21 Million. It just doesn't make sense.

We would have to rephrase our statement a little to make it true:
"there will never be a monetary base M0 for the bitcoin currency larger than 21 Million".
True. ;)

(OT - better split the thread, again!)
Of course you can trust a 0-conf transaction for something like coffee. You can check against most obvious double-spends with software which quickly checks mining queue and blockchain for doublespends, which already exists and is implemented by most services accepting no or few confs. $x coffee, however, is much different than the $xxx-$xxxx transactions you can use personal checks for, which are much easier to defraud with.

There is 0% inflation. There are 21 Million Bitcoins and there will never be anymore. That about 9 million BTC haven't been issued with makes no difference.

If anything there is slight (?) deflation with some Bitcoins are forever untransactable due to the private keys being lost. This deflation is very hard to measure however.

That just 2 posts below my: ::)

Very interesting point.

I suppose if you say "trust" but don't mean 100% trust like bitcoin is meant to be then sure but you are talking about now where transaction quantity is much lower then if bitcoin starts getting accepted at every local coffee shop.  I'm not certain it would be that easy to check against double spends if there are millions of transactions per second.  Also human beings are like water if there is an advantage to be had people will scam for coffee just as easily as they shoplift now.  I just don't see bitcoin being useful or for that matter designed for it when you get 1st confirmation in 10min lower now but could be higher if diff falls of a cliff.  If anything I think the desire to make it more accepted as a payment method instead of something more unique will create more issues.  Sure with larger adoption you get a higher exchange rate which benefits current holders.  The more mass populace jumps into it without going through the learning process of encryption and other unique bitcoin properties the more scams will proliferate which then leads to calls for tighter regulation which then leads to an actual confrontation with governments over such regulation since bitcoin by design doesn't subject itself to easy regulation.  If one wants bitcoin to succeed long term you'd want such a confrontation to come as late as possible to have a larger more distributed network and also much more educated holders who aren't easily swayed by government edict.  If one wants to have the biggest profit possible as soon as possible then promoting bitcoin coffee payments is certainly more profitable.  Now there is an interesting morality question for bitcoin proponents.  Do you want more people to use bitcoin even if they don't get it or don't you?

That is an interesting definition of 'are'.
There are currently just under 12M Bitcoin in circulation. There will eventually be 21M Bitcoin in circulation.
In the next year the amount of Bitcoin in circulation will increase by 10%.
Of course it makes a difference that the other 9M don't actually exist yet.

Bitcoin is not a currency. It can best be compared to rare football game card collecting. It has no value except for the imaginary value assigned to it by a small flock of enthusiasts. (Of course there is an very interesting and new technology behind it, but that is a completely different story)

@wingding

Think about asset and value again. Nothing and all can have value. There are some concepts with big value and some goods with small value. Value is just a measurement of market acceptance and request. If enough people are believing and dealing with the same thing, whatever that might be, then it has a value. If the people loose their believe in gold the price will drop on the mining cost level - that might be pretty low according to the existing vast amounts of gold reserves.

Currently I see gold dropping down and Bitcoin raising up.

There is indeed much more money than goods/services, but all those extra money were hold by the banks and they just hold more and more money and collecting interest from those money to spend

Since the interest of those money are extremely low (like 1%), even the money supply increased by 100%, the real added money supply in circulation is only 1%. That will not trigger any inflation, thus people still trust fiat money, and their trust enabled banks to accumulate huge amount of fiat money in their account

People usually are short sighted, as long as there is no inflation, they don't care how much money banks pocketed. Maybe there is a few brave souls trying to challenge banks' illicit profit method, but they will be overwhelmed by those economists that is brainwashed by the bankers. The bankers have created many misconceptions and illusions regarding money creation to disguise the simple fact that they just print money for themselves

That's how I see gold. 

Do you think it matters who is in the "small flock of enthusiasts?"  The British Pound is backed by the state and that particular small flock of enthusiasts has the means to ensure that retailers have to accept the pound in their shops.  Gold and bitcoin rely on both parties voluntarily agreeing to use the currency.  Do you think that its that power to coerce use of the Pound what makes it a currency?

Not true at all.

When I lend a (physical) book, I'm not creating a new book. I need to have that book in my possession, and once it's lent, it's no longer in my possession. Same goes for bitcoin - it has to leave your wallet to be lent.

Not sure what you mean when you say "deposit bitcoins," but if you were actually lending out some kind of promissory note backed by some amount of bitcoin in your wallet, then you weren't lending bitcoin. Who would accept your promissory notes over the real thing?

If you're unsure about the meaning of the word "deposit", may I point you to:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demand_deposit,
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=33589,
because I'm not going to explain that in detail.

In short, when I lend you a bitcoin you receive 1 bitcoin, I receive an IOU for 1 bitcoin (the deposit bitcoin), totaling 2 bitcoins. The interest I will take for the loan will come on top of that and is actually the only part of the money supply that's created in the end after the debt's been settled. That interest is not created out of thin air and not artificially valued, but is equal to the lost opportunity value of the bitcoin I've given up (in a perfect market, in reality I will take a little profit, because I'm greedy ;D )


You got it all backwards.
When I'm the one to lend you a bitcoin, I'm also the one who will accept that promissory note over the "real thing".
Why? Because I'll receive interest.

It might be backwards, but the point still stands. You think that promissory note has the same purchasing power as bitcoin? Who else is going to accept it?

Think this through. You've exchanged a bitcoin for a bitcoin-backed promissory note. No bitcoin created.

No Bitcoin created indeed.  And if you aren't paid back, you don't get interest or principle.  This is how money is supposed to work, but with fiat we have centralized lending so we can socialize losses while fighting to maintain privatization of profits.

Trading cards derive their value from the "want-to-have-this-special-card"-factor.
For bitcoins, this is not true. It might be true for colored coins in the future, though.
It does not matter which bitcoin I send you, you'll be happy as long as it's part of the Bitcoin network.
In other words, a single bitcoin does not have a definite value that sets it apart from other bitcoins.
That makes bitcoins interchangeable and a perfect medium of exchange, because they have practically no other use or purpose whatsoever, whereas trading cards might be used as a currency (in fact, on school playgrounds, they sometimes are), but generally are not.

You probably are aware of the common definitions of currency and money, but just for reference:

I might add that one would have to make a little distinction here:
I try to use the word "Bitcoin" (capital B) when I refer to the Bitcoin system in its entirety, meaning the Satoshi whitepaper, the blockchain, the network and the miners, altogether building a payment system,
"bitcoin" (lowercase b) to describe the "currency", and
"bitcoins" to describe units of said currency.
(I'm not always very consequential about my usage, though)
("bit coins" being what my spell checker makes out of them >:()

If you talk about bitcoins as records of the Bitcoin blockchain, you're absolutely right.
But the same argument holds true for any other currency.
No banknotes are created by widening the money supply of the USD (well, there are in fact extra banknotes printed, but that's got almost nothing to do with the widening of M1 - M3).
Following your argument would mean that the purchasing power of Dollar banknotes would be greater than the purchasing power of deposit Dollars. Interestingly, there is indeed a disparity between the purchasing power of a banknote and deposits. For small amounts, the banknote is usually favored, for large transfers, you'd probably have to pay a premium if you wanted to pay cash. But I guess that's not your point ;)

Who else is going to accept my IOU? Well, even Bitcoins history tells us that there is indeed a market for debts, I recall several occasions where debt has been resold right here at bitcointalk.org, e.g. in the pirateat40 scam and others. Sure, those IOUs are usually priced at a discount that's taking into consideration the risk-to-opportunity-ratio, but again, that's not different from other currencies.

To sum it up: you may not like it, but there are more bitcoins than there are units of currency in the blockchain (well, in fact, no, that might or might not be true, because we would also have to consider the amount of lost bitcoins, well, you get the idea), and there's no difference between bitcoins and other currencies regarding this aspect of money creation.

bitcoin IOU != bitcoin

As you said yourself, bitcoin IOUs sell at a discount to bitcoin, so they can't possibly be equivalent.

(Sorry if I go back to an earlier topic, I just wanted to make a point here)

Fiat is theft if the government requires you to pay your taxes only in fiat, which almost all presently do.

You can say the government doesn't force us to accept fiat for goods and services, but if they force your customers to take their pay in fiat and force your suppliers to pay for their service fees and use taxes in fiat, then it's pretty much a moot point. We use fiat because the government requires it, even if they don't *directly* require it from you.

"The government gives you the option to accept goods and services in fiat" would be the opposite form of the statement in question.

In this case, the word "option" would be a misnomer, however, because it really isn't an option if the government also controls the mechanisms through with the supplier and customer must deal with their benefactors by law. Requiring taxes in fiat only steals the opportunity for folks to choose what constitutes as money.

Ergo, issuing fiat money under the terms which governments presently do, is theft.

Even with this setup, however, gold and silver were still being used for years as currency by those folks that recognized fiat as theft. It wasn't until the government also started taxing gold and silver trades that it became difficult-to-impossible to use them as money. Thus, the theft-as-an-option became outright theft.

This is why Ron Paul wanted to remove these taxes, it was the first step toward a freer society. The next step would be allowing people to pay taxes in gold/silver/bitcoin.

That's why I referred to the bitcoin IOU as a "deposit" bitcoin. It's a bitcoin, nonetheless. It's not part of the blockchain, though, as long as it's not using colored coins, but that might just be a matter of time.
I also explicitly told you that they might be sold at a discount or a premium. They are not equivalent in the same way a USD banknote is not equivalent to a USD bank deposit. For any practical purpose, though, they are equivalent.

http://i0.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/000/065/007/popedeathstarye3.jpg

No it's not.  When I accept bitcoin payments, I do not accept bitcoin IOUs.

How about this practical purpose:
I have a USD banknote and a USD deposit, both equal in value to 1 gram of marijuana.  I wish to purchase 1 gram of marijuana and when I go to make the trade, I ask if I can pay by check.  The guy with the weed tells me to get the fuck out and never come back.

Also, in times of stress, banks limit withdrawals.  Your deposit becomes inaccessible.  This can not happen to a banknote in your possession.

So, tell me again, how USD banknotes and USD deposits are equivalent for any practical purpose.

Let's ignore the nitpicking about "theft", "coercion", "robbery", and just use the word "theft" for the moment. I still have to point out that there's a huge difference between being required to use e.g. the Dollar to pay for taxes as opposed to being forced to hold onto the Dollar for your life savings. It's an inconvenience which I earlier on compared to the inconvenience of buying stamps to use postal service. Also, if during the exchange process into stamps you lose money (by exchange rates + fees, or lost opportunity value), this definitely is more than a little inconvenience, no doubt about that. But as long as the government does not profit from your loss, that's not theft, either.


You're not required to pay your employees in Dollars, are you? At least here in Germany I pay a few of my employees at least partially in goods and services (even I'm payed in the form of a car and some other benefits, partially). I do have to value those in EUR, though, and tax them accordingly.


As far as I can see, it only steals the opportunity value of holding another currency while you're exchanging and paying taxes etc. And I don't even see the government profiting from this.
I don't really understand what you mean by "the government also controls the mechanisms through which the supplier and customer must deal with their benefactors by law" and what implications that might have for our little discussion.
Also, I tend to regard "the government gives you the option to accept goods and services in fiat" as true.


Gold/silver make terrible currencies, but that's a completely different issue. There's a reason why the free market chose to practically abandon gold and silver. This did not have to be enforced by the government but was a direct result of Gresham's law (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gresham's_law). Gold is still untaxed in many parts of the world, yet practically nowhere is it in use as a currency.
Allowing people to pay taxes in gold would lead to people paying taxes in Dollars, as a direct result of said Gresham's law.

If this could be considered a step towards a freer society, well, I don't know. It would probably lead to a higher bureaucratic burden, more government employees, higher taxes, and I fail to see where this could be considered progress towards freedom.

Nice straw man you're setting up there.
I explicitly detailed how a banknote might be preferred over a bank deposit earlier on. At the same time, there are situations where the opposite is true. For most practical uses, though, both are equivalent.
I buy a Big Mac, I pay cash, I pay by credit card, no questions asked.
I buy a car, I pay cash, I pay by credit card, no questions asked.
I buy a house, I pay cash - well, no.
I buy crack, I pay by credit card - well, no.

If you personally don't accept payments by bitcoin IOUs is just not the point.
At this very moment, a lot of people do, and they contribute a large portion of the Bitcoin economy, just think of all the coins sitting in exchanges or at bitfunder or in mining contracts.

You probably want Bitcoin to be "money". Unfortunately I'll have to tell you there's no such thing as a free lunch.
Bitcoin being money means Bitcoin functions as money, and that includes the process of money creation through lending.

The statement "there will never be more than 21 Million bitcoins" is false.
The statement "there will never be a monetary base M0 for the bitcoin currency larger than 21 Million" is true.

Any entity that has a monopoly on force that requires you to convert your physical property into a convertible that they possess the supply of is extortion, a form of theft.


The government provides welfare in the form of their fiat currency, meaning that your customers possess no wealth of their own, but rather than the government choosing to do welfare in the form of hard physical assets, like gold and silver, they instead give these potential customers representations of debt. If the ultimate end game is that all governments fail, said debt is, ultimately worthless, even if today it possesses a value to those who choose to transact in it.

The government also affects most suppliers as well, via legal tender laws. You are required (at least in the US) to accept fiat currency as legal tender for a loan, regardless of whatever it was originally transacted in. Because of this, suppose a supplier wanted a loan to acquire a large number of raw materials to assemble the trinkets you sell. Normally they'd just acquire debt payable in physical commodities, give you your trinkets, and then pay off those bank notes with the gold, silver, Bitcoins that you paid for their goods in and pocket whatever difference there was. But not so if the banker that made them the loan is forced to abide by legal tender laws and accept the fiat the government creates. In that case, they will actually encourage you to acquire the aforementioned worthless fiat currency that your customers have plenty of, so they can use that, and pocket the little remaining gold.


It's not because of Gresham's law, though. Gresham's law only describes the symptoms, but not the cause. The cause is because of legal tender laws that require fiat to be accepted by those giving out loans. Of course bad money drives out good. But the money is still bad and being propped up as equal to the good money. Once it's no longer propped up in such a fashion, the reverse happens, and typically quickly.

I'm forced to convert my physical property into a convertible "they" possess, whenever I need to take a leak at a highway restroom. Yet, I somehow don't feel "robbed". I'm unsure if something like this exists in the U.S., but it is absolutely common here in Germany:
http://www.sanifair.de/sanifair/index_en.php (http://www.sanifair.de/sanifair/index_en.php)
Now, joking aside, let's agree to disagree here, because I see no point in continuing the debate about that particular point.


Okay, let me see if I got that right: the government provides welfare in the form of Dollars. My customers are on welfare (at least some of them). If the government gave them gold, I would not be forced to accept Dollars. But I would have to accept gold, right? (Which btw would be much more inconvenient for me, I have no direct use for gold, but I do have a direct use for Dollars). In the end, the government crumbles, and Dollars are worthless, but gold is still valuable. Sorry if this sounds like ridiculing your argument, that's really not my intention, but in the end, that's what it looks like. It just doesn't make any sense to me from a practical point of view. I don't use gold on an everyday basis. I do use cash on an everyday basis. As a store of value, I personally prefer other things over gold, and if it comes to "Endgame", i'd rather have booze and cigarettes than gold.


Yes, for practical purposes, the same applies here.
But that doesn't stop you from making a contract where you trade goods against other goods. AFAIK, that's not illegal in the U.S. as well. Only in the case where the original fulfillment of the contract is no longer possible, you are required to accept a settlement in your respective currency. But that's actually no more than a practical necessity. How would you settle a contract if the normal delivery versus payment cycle becomes impossible for lack of the promised good? There has to be a fallback, and that's legal tender. BTW, you may define other fallbacks in a contract.


What was the original loan about? Dollars? Then why wouldn't it be paid back in Dollars? You're claiming an opportunity value for the debtor here. That's unethical. I lend somebody an apple, I want an apple back. I lend somebody a Dollar, I want a Dollar back. I lend him a Dollar and he buys gold with it and wants me to accept his gold as a settlement, but he will pocket the difference because the value of gold went up? No, thanks.
I will have to accept a repayment in Dollars if he no longer has the apple, though. That's uncomfortable, but there just has to be a fallback. We could have agreed on one-and-a-half pears instead, no need for the Dollar then. But what if he also doesn't have pears?

"And pocket the little remaining gold". Bankers are not Leprechauns who want to sit on a stash of gold ;D
Just because you think fiat currency is worthless does not mean the same applies for the rest of the world.
Most banks, governments, wealthy individuals(citation needed), are actively trying to reduce their stash of gold.
They don't want it. Why? Because it holds very little opportunity value.


In reality, Gresham's law is not applicable in its traditional form when it comes to the choice between gold and fiat money.
Fiat won't drive out gold. Or, more generally speaking, bad money won't drive out good money in a free market, it will just adjust in price until the bad money is valued low enough to be competitive with good money. Because of its utility value, though, the bad money will still be preferred.
When you follow that argument to its end, you will find that the Dollar/gold exchange rate already has all the risks that come with fiat priced in. In other words, you don't lose much more than a little "friction" when you convert your Dollars into gold and vice versa.
Now, let's come back to the main point of the argument, is that little friction really theft?

The same could be said of all current, future and past currencies the only difference is the size of the "flock of enthusiasts".

This.  The often misquoted Gresham's if often misquoted to mean "bad money displaces good money" but this important caveat is UNDER GOVERNMENTAL FORCE.  As for spenders it makes sense.  I have this dollar I don't trust and I have this lump of gold I do trust.  I will save the gold and spend the dollar.   However if one thinks a little deeper if logically one wants to keep gold and get rid of dollars why would a merchant accept dollars.  Maybe they would in a limited fashion to quickly exchange the dollar for gold and pawn the risk on some other sucker but if everyone is doing that then essentially there is no market for the bad money.  However Gresham's law is pointing out that if the government makes the bad money legal tender and thus obligating its acceptance is certain scenarios then the better money is displaced.   Without the government using force people would simply demand the better money (gold) or at a minimum charge a higher price for payment in the bad money.

"The cause is because of legal tender laws that require fiat to be accepted by those giving out loans."

What exactly does this mean? That legal tender must be accepted (i.e, if I lent you 10 BTC, when they were worth $10 apiece, and now they're $100 apiece, so I must accept $1000 USD as my payment) or that loans must be denominated in legal tender? If its the latter, how does shorting work?

The former. I must (in the US or when lending to a US citizen) accept $1000 from someone owing me 10BTC when BTC is worth $100. That is retarded and any lender who exercises that right won't ever lend from me again (you can ask me whether I would accept it though).

An extension of this is that damages in a court of law are awarded in legal tender.

So someone borrows 100 BTC fails to repay and you sue them.  Assumming the court agrees that the debt is valid they will enter a judgement in legal tender so if the current exchange rate is $200 USD per BTC the court might award a judgement of $20,000.   You may collect the value of your damages but you have no guarantee it will be paid in anything other than legal tender.

With the exception that bitcoins become more rare with time and currency less rare by printing.

Good ol' Gresham lived in a time where classical "currency money", i.e. money that takes its value from the material value of its coins was the only "good money", whereas government issued money was considered "bad". That's why, in its original form, Gresham's law is effectively not applicable to the situation of e.g. the U.S. Dollar versus bitcoin. That's also why said law is usually quoted in its more general meaning "bad money drives out good". It is applicable for any pair of currencies, be they legal tender or not and will lead to the depreciation of the less attractive one against the more attractive up to the point where an equilibrium is reached. From then on, the bad money will be in higher circulation because it is riskier to hold on to it, making it practically more useful than the good money. In fact, the principle does not only apply to currencies, but can even be seen on job markets or elsewhere.
So, yes, you're right, Gresham's law is often misquoted, and not even applicable to today's situation.

I've always wondered why that is considered to be such a huge problem. In fact, in a European court, you will also be "forced" to accept Euros as compensation for a loan or damage or whatever. The Euro is just the fallback medium of exchange when the original good that was lent or damaged is no longer available. There just has to be some fallback. You are allowed to agree on another compensation in a court case, though (at least here in Germany), and I wonder if that's not also the case in the U.S.?

I can't believe someone actually made the morality argument for a currency, if you're going to go their I'd argue that paper money has to be one of the evil and dishonest methods ever created by man to steal another persons wealth. Not only are people threatened with jail if they don't pay their taxes if you know anything about economics you know we could never afford such large scale infrastructure and military, so in order to even come close to affording this anyone who supports this system is passively putting their children and grandchildren into debt. The irony is that because of this no matter how parents might think they're doing their kids a favour by building all these shiny schools it won't matter in the long run because their children and grandchildren will have to pay so much that they will be forced to drop their living standards dramatically making the whole plan pointless.

What's worse for me is that if I didn't have Bitcoin I would end up paying stupid amounts just so that these scumbags can have pensions and live easier earlier in life rather than retire in what most would call the normal way because they're living longer. People rant on about how the gap between the rich and the poor are always affected but it's much worse than that because everybody is dumping the problem on children and I am utterly convinced that this is precisely why the politicians in power wouldn't dare let them vote even at the age of 16 because they know they'd vote for someone who would actually fix the problem at their expense as it should be.

In short, fuck anyone who disagrees with me, I'm keeping my wealth and you're not stealing it, if you're going to steal from me do it honestly and don't hide behind corrupt politicians and paper money because you're too scared to admit you are.