John Jackson: "It's time someone had the courage to stand up and say: I'm against those things that everybody hates."

Jack Johnson: "Now, I respect my opponent. I think he's a good man. But quite frankly, I agree with everything he just said."

John Jackson: "I say your three cent titanium tax goes too far."

Jack Johnson: "And I say your three cent titanium tax doesn't go too far enough."

Notice it says "people who visited this profile also visited". It does *not* say "people who visited this profile also visited these profiles". So people who visited the GPUMax profile also visited the Holiner Psychiatric Group.

He doesn't choose the cop's priorities.

Actually, that's not true. The expected severity of an accident goes up but the chance of an accident goes down. This is primarily because the faster you go, the less time you are on the road and accident risk correlates much more strongly with time on the road than it does with speed. In most realistic scenarios, he poses less risk to others because he's not on the road for as long. (Obviously, this isn't true if he was going so fast he wasn't in control.)

Right, but to figure out if that's a *net* harm you have to balance it against the net gain to society of his speeding. If you don't see why this is so, imagine if everyone drove at 10 miles per hour and think about what effect that would have on the economy.

Would you support a national 45 mile per hour speed limit? I mean, look at all the benefits it should have -- less risk, less fuel burned, all things you seem to think are good. If you think speed limits are set to some kind of scientifically optimal value, I have a bridge to sell you.

Since the current polling data shows them neck and neck, I'd say you're just making the demonstrably false assumption that everyone sees them the same way you do.

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/obama_administration/daily_presidential_tracking_poll

http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/poll-presidential-race-remains-close-obama-romney-each

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2012/president/us/general_election_romney_vs_obama-1171.html

'Trendon Shavers' is an anagram for 'Horned Servants'. Coincidence?

I guess a working theory is this: Withdrawals were starting to get very close to, or even exceed, deposits. To preserve his profits and try to keep going a bit longer, he reduced the interest rate, figuring this would reduce the withdrawals without significantly reducing deposits. Instead, this backfired, either increasing withdrawals, reducing deposits, or both. This forced him to shut down his operation earlier than he had planned to, so he needs time to wind down all his positions so that he can run with them.

Assuming there's no volume of PPTs to double-dip with, I don't have any other theory.

He just uploaded a pic to his Facebook page.

It will cost him money because he will have to bear all the costs of manipulating the market himself and he will have to share the profits with anyone who chooses to follow along for the ride.

While he's pushing the price down to induce a panic sell, others are buying his Bitcoins for less than they are worth medium-term.  And then he has to compete with everyone else to buy any Bitcoins that are sold in panic as the market quickly rises.

While he's pushing the price up to sell above fair market value, others are selling him Bitcoins for more than they are worth medium-term. And then he has to compete with everyone else to sell Bitcoins at above fair market value to people who think the rise is real as the market quickly falls.

So long as there people who are anywhere close to equal to him in size in total, he will lose money every time he tries to manipulate the market. He can make Bitcoins unstable, but it will cost him to do it. People who have learned this lesson the hard way include Nelson Bunker Hunt and Allan A. Ryan.

If the total value of all outstanding tradeable PPTs isn't that high, or the trade volume in them is fairly low, then that would prove that this isn't happening. In that case, I'm baffled by this.

That's why I suggested he held and is selling "a large number" of PPTs. The 1,000 BTC worth of PPTs was an example of a single transaction he might make. This is something he can only do if he has a reasonably large window where he doesn't have to make any payouts but won't create a panic by not making payouts. This is precisely what he has created.

Do you have any theories on why he would do this at all? It seems to me that it would make much more sense for him to just disappear with everyone's money. What does stalling buy him?

I can think of only one thing, and it's very disturbing. Perhaps Pirate himself holds a large number of PPTs. Consider:

1) Someone deposits 1,000 BTC with Pirate.

2) Pirate uses those 1,000 BTC to buy PPTs. He gets those 1,000 Bitcoins back anyway.

3) Now, after he announces no more payouts, he sells those PPTs. They're trading at 70% of face anyway. So he gets 700 BTC.

He can only do this if he suspends withdrawals because otherwise, selling PPTs will reduce his income stream (it runs this in reverse, but that can't happen with payouts suspended). But he can buy PPTs for free, and so long as he isn't making any payouts, he can sell them and keep the proceeds.

You can work out the consequences for yourselves.

If you're serious, I can confirm that this thread is in fact being posted by the real Matthew. He may, however, be off his meds.

That's because there's a legitimate question whether or not they're games of chance. You can have a chess tournament with cash prices. You can't have a lottery. Satoshi Dice is pure chance.

Yes, but we're talking about the public key. That's only placed in the blockchain when it's used to claim a transaction output. If you've never spent any coins, your public key will normally not be in the blockchain no matter how many coins have been sent to you. All that's known is your address (a hash of the public key).

Someone sent them to you, of course. But since you've never spent any of them, your public key has never been disclosed.

I have a lifetime ban because someone stole my identity six years ago and created a PayPal account. They didn't even rip PayPal off. (PP-001-530-046-635)

I've tried to work this out with PayPal about a dozen times over the past four years. The way PayPal has dealt with this incident has been brutally dishonest. For example, I filed a BBB complaint. PayPal gave absolutely no information in any of their responses until the very last one, the one that I don't get to respond to, in which they made all kinds of new, nonsensical accusations. Needless to say, without me having any opportunity to respond to these, the BBB found PayPal's actions reasonable.

Lack of access to PayPal has meant no access to eBay. For a variety of reasons, this has been incredibly inconvenient for me personally.

I even escalated to the California government agency that monitors their compliance with regulations associated with their money transfer license. They promised to look into my complaint and contact PayPal about it. They responded to me that they "received a satisfactory response from PayPal" and wouldn't answer me further. Draw your own conclusions.

The most detail I've ever gotten from PayPal is this: "We have detected that these accounts were used to purchase from a website in violation of our Acceptable Use Policy. The severity of the violation is such that any linked accounts will be closed."

In my mind at least, PayPal is pure evil.

Last I checked, the going rate for Pirate debt is 70% of face. I would imagine the 19 bitcoins counts, since if it's paid at all, that would be paid too. So I get a market value of 225 BTC. You're asking for 90% of face. I don't think you'll find a buyer at that price.

Yeah, true.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_eZmEiyTo0

You know I said that I hope I'm wrong and that Pirate isn't a Ponzi and can, by some miracle, pay everyone back. Well, I take that back. I now really hope that Pirate is a Ponzi scheme and defaults on a significant fraction of existing obligations.

No, it's not because I love a good, "I told you so!". I do, of course. Who doesn't? But that's not the reason.

The reason is that if Pirate somehow pays everyone back, a dozen new Ponzi schemes will pop up. And whenever sane, rational people point out that has every single conceivable sign of a Ponzi scheme and only an idiot would invest, someone will point out that that's what people said about Pirate.

The only way I can see to get Bitcoin away from being a haven for HYIP scams is for there to be a very public, very painful collapse. So I now officially hope everyone with Pirate exposure gets screwed as hard as possible -- for the good of Bitcoin.

I agree. They're just signs of a scam -- things that make it a bit more likely that an offer is a scam. And, on the other hand, this is a company with an actual history of successfully producing and delivering innovative products.