Yes. The decision would be "grass".

I am going on vacation in a month in Costa Rica so I started e-mailing local hotels and B&Bs asking if they accept Bitcoins or if they have never heard of them if they would check them out as I want to use Bitcoins for my trip.

Most of my responses were along the lines of "We only accept credit cards or cash".

I did get one response that said she had looked into Bitcoin and found it quite interesting, but that they were a new business and needed to have cash. I replied with a short message saying that bit-pay allows you to accept Bitcoin and have it automatically converted to cash, cheaper than a credit card. (this was yesterday, no response yet).


So I was wondering...what if more people started e-mailing these merchants? If someone were to get an e-mail once a week or so from someone asking if they accept Bitcoins, they may give it some careful consideration.

What if we put together an e-mail group or something where people offer up e-mails of places they would like to go spend their Bitcoins with a small description, then have several different people periodically send e-mails. Hotels, bars, restaurants, stores, websites, whichever. Maybe set up a program so that once someone e-mails a merchant the e-mail goes to the bottom of the list and does not come up until everyone else has been e-mailed (so they do not get 10 e-mails in one day asking about Bitcoins).

These would be places that people would actually want to spend their Bitcoins, so it is not like the merchant would start accepting them and then nobody uses them.

Thoughts?

Holding steady at one price would be decent.

At least the decline has been much slower. It used to fall about an average of one dollar a week. It has been hovering around this price for about 3 weeks.

This means that we are just about at that point where enough interest is coming in weekly to make up for the inflation rate.

If the price can hold steady long enough and maybe start to rise a bit with more use, then it is nothing but UP when the inflation rate is cut in half.

I usually say that Bitcoins are in that early stage known mainly by computer geeks. Kinda like the early days of the Internet.

The spike in trading tends to lag at least a week behind big news as people figure out how to change their money into Bitcoins.

Basic question. This will clear it up once and for all. Is Democracy a bad idea?

I already covered that...

Yes, people do tend toward greed. It is better to work in a system that is productive based upon this fact than try to fight it.

If you have a group where the same guy keeps buying up the votes, the remaining members can EASILY drop the group and form their own. That is the point of this, it is very fluid. You stop paying dues and you are no longer a voting member. You do not like how the club is being run. Drop out and join one that you do agree with.

The point of this is to have people join others with similar interests and goals and put their combined money toward those goals. On a voluntary basis. And if there is not agreement, the group will be slow to growth.

And the solution that satisfies the most people in the group will always win. Because there will always be that delay to allow for better ideas that satisfy more people to be presented. With the goal of finding a solution that satisfies everyone.

Why must the government run the non-profit?

Here is the fire department I used to have:
http://www.columbiacountyga.gov/index.aspx?page=4065

Though in Texas I did live in a few places that I could choose my electricity provider. I ended up choosing the windmill power company at one location.

Worked out well because the other company had to burn gasoline when the capacity was maxed out which cost extra money for electricity at those times. And that was when gas was around $5 per gallon. The flat rate was higher than the other for the windmill company but it turned out to save me a lot of money.

Choice...aint it grand?

True. I am not a big fan of government created monopolies.

With private roads they could run several separate systems under the roads to people's houses and charge each company rent for it. Thus allowing competition.

I am actually going to run for commissioner of my local water company just to keep them honest.

If he did 10 BTC in commerce a day that involved someone transferring their dollars into BTC then that WOULD require the exchanges.

If Adam has an apple tree and Lisa has an orange tree and they trade apples to oranges all the time. Then Joe offers $1 for one of the apples, all of the apples become worth $1. If Adam grows ten apples a day and continues to trade with Lisa for oranges but has 1 extra apple each day that he trades with Joe then the apple community needs $1 per day to maintain the current price. Even though he creates 10 apples per day, only 1 accounts for its dollar price. He does not need $10 per day to maintain the $1 price.

If Joe and Tim show up and want that one apple, they might bid the price up to $2. He does not now need $20 per day in sales to maintain the $2 price.

The dollar price is set on the portion of Bitcoins that are being traded for dollars. And that is currently 1/6th.

Greece needs to crash in order to move forward. They have crashed already, they just need to acknowledge it to move on.

Well, there is the caveat that there could be free education that is not socialist.

Teachers could decide to voluntarily provide their services every day. Janitors could volunteer to take care of the school. Construction workers could volunteer to build the building. Donors could donate materials.

Or someone could voluntarily give their money to pay for the school for the child's free education.

Or the child can be home schooled.

Otherwise someone has to pay. Or under socialism you steal money from someone and give it to the school.

It is as ok as just having a little bit of cancer.

Sure it may not kill you, but most likely all of the bad things that are happening to your body are most likely related to the cancer.

And then there is the fact that it has been known to grow.

Free education for children is socialism.

The Tea Party was started by Ron Paul supporters Dec. 16, 2007
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uvGS12EoZUE

The whole point was that they were fed up with the establishment media ignoring Ron Paul and pushing their liberal choice, McCain.

The groups continued as Obama brought in his health care scheme.

Then the regular Republicans started showing up thinking that it was an anti-Obama protest. Not understanding where it all started.

Reminds me of when my cousin used to smoke pot and he would throw the seeds out the window. Eventually the seeds grew into a plant and my grandma had some friends over
and they were all intrigued by such a pretty plant. She said she did not know what it was called but gave them each a few leaves to take home.

If only tea partiers knew how the current Tea Party movement got started.

Why isn't every country a rainbow colored unicorn?

There was also the part about each new member of the group requires a vote by everyone else. So if your group does not want you to have more than one share they can just vote against you getting another share. If they want more money coming in and like your ideas, then they may allow it. That would be up to each group.

I see this all the time when mentioning getting rid of the income tax. "Hope your house isn't burning down, there will be no firemen to come help you." or the idea that you would have a huge pile of garbage because your tax paid garbage service would not show up.

Outside of the fact that the income tax pays for the federal government and fire stations, garbage service, etc is paid through property taxes, I still get disturbed by this.

Why do people believe that a fire station can only be run by tax dollars?

I lived in a county once, the population was a few hundred thousand people, that had a private fire department.

When I moved into my house I was mailed a letter with the private fire company's rates. I had the choice of paying $20 per month for full coverage, or there were fees for services. $50 minimum for a service call for small things such as a small kitchen fire or such and a maximum of $2,000 for a full house fire which it said that my homeowners insurance should be able to pay.

I have also had private garbage service at most places I have lived. I now pay $10 per month for garbage pick up. They come out 2 times a week and do a good job. If they did not do a good job I would just call another company.

My electricity is private. My water company is private. My sewage company is private. My current fire company is public. They used to be private but the county wanted to take over all fire services in the county so they snatched them up via eminent domain.

My property taxes are very low. I pay about $1,500 per year on a house valued around $200k.