I don't know how any of the points that I am making go to the substance of any of the points that you are making about slavery.... we have plenty of slaves in the usa and we also have employment issues too that are largely caused by rich people engaged in a form of capital strike by investing outside of the usa or merely holding onto free money that is gotten from the government and or the fed reserve.

Just b/c there exist various scandals does NOT mean that the whole concept and/or idea of health care being a public good should be abandoned and denied to the people... merely in order that rich people can profit.  Most likely insurance companies in many instances, but there are a lot of other ways that people get ripped off by the various health care industry dynamics in the usa including pharmaceuticals and the food industry.

It still does NOT make your earlier statement correct, but I guess I understand the point that you are making... even though I think that you are oversimplifying the role of government and attempting to characterize it as something that it is NOT... which your oversimplification causes you (and several of your other anti-government proponents) to attempt to throw the baby out with the bath water.

There are a large number of ways to form better democracies and more responsible capitalism, and it seems that bitcoin can help in some of these endeavors... and when I am talking better and more responsible, I am specifically indicating that the spectrum of public input needs to shift to allow for more channels in which regular people can influence a variety of decision making. 

Personally, I am of the believe that the creation of laws that allow for more powerful and proliferation of unionization would be one possibility and another could be to allow more worker and or community directive cooperatives (and incentives in society for such).   

There may be other ways to accomplish such as well, and I do NOT feel that I have all of the answers because even if there is a movement towards increasing democratic input, it takes time to evolve such new infrastructures.. even creating incentives for cities to develop better mass transit systems and more community space would be a step in the right direction, from my perspective.


  I understand that a lot of you anarchists and/or libertarian oriented peeps have contrary views, and I suppose there could be ways to accommodate some of those values as well, as long as people want such and as long as people are making these decisions rather than monied interests. IN the end, I am NOT so attached to any actual outcome, so long as our society and community heads in the direction to increase people participation and input rather than letting less than 1% of the people dictate the societal structures for the mere purpose that the 1% can maintain their wealth and keep the 99%-ish from having such input and/or wealth building security.

Actually, we get into a few complications and speculations here; however, I also like to use $1million in liquid (or quasi-liquid) income generating assets as a decent target to aspire to. 

If you have $1million in liquid assets then with traditional investment models, you should expect at least be able to employ a 4%  per year withdrawal of the income without undermining the principle.  That would be $40k per year and $3,333 per month, gross. 

However a few things could change those variables regarding how much to draw.

1)  if you are able to achieve higher growth rates with your assets, then your withdrawal rate can be higher.

2)  Another variable can be if you are ready to start shrinking the principle, then you can start to draw into the principle and have a higher income but to expect that it will not last forever, that depends, usually on life expectancy and potentially the running into other income sources.

3) people are going to come to differing judgements concerning regarding how much they need to live, whether it is $1k per month or $3k or $10k or $20k or higher... Many times with current USA averages, $3k or more can be adequate in today's dollars (but maybe a little bit tight).

4) regarding inflation, we can probably project that inflation will continue to cause the amount needed to go up and even double by the time you need it (expect halfing of the value of the dollar every 10 years). If you think you will need it in 1 year or 5 years or 10 years or 20 years, the inflation should be accounted.  Also, If you live in another country the amount may be more or less than the american amount too, and those values are going to change over time and change relative to one another.  And, likely a world of bitcoin will affect these values, and affect decisions about where you would like to store your value... or how you would like to diversify your assets.

This is a pretty good discussion, Jorge, and I imagine what you mean by examples of public health care systems around the world, you are suggesting and indicating that they are much less profit driven and much more health care driven and much more beneficial and meaningful to people.. as compared with the stupid ass profit driven american health care system.

In other words, I believe we agree here, and maybe you should stick with NON bitcoin commentary in order to meaningfully contribute to this thread and to the world in general.   






You edited out your paragraph, about which I was complimenting you... I was complimenting you b/c more or less you were saying something meaningful... then you devolved into your fear mongering talk about the doom and gloom of bitcoin... ..
and as you know, I use the term FUD in its traditional common parlance which is the spreading of Fear Uncertainty and Doubt... that is the purpose of most of your bitcoin talk and probably what you are being paid to do... by some sponsor.... or at least you believe your participation in bitcoin talks is good for your resume to show what side you are on... the side of fiat...   whatever...

It appears that a cease fire agreement has been reached - at least for the moment.      

We do NOT need to agree.  I can make my points and you can make your points, and no need to pursue the matter further.


 
 

Sounds like you are oversimplifying again, and I have NO need to persuade you - especially if we each believe that we made our points, and then the discussion gets diverted into whether one style or another is preferable... Thereafter, we may NOT even recall what was being discussed.


 
 

 Apparently, we are not discussing matters on the same level.  I have repeated that we should consider that there are various ways to spend tax dollars and some ways have a larger affect than others depending upon who gets the money.. and those kinds of multiplier effects should be taken into account when we decide how to allocate our tax dollars.



 

At least in theory it sounds as if you understand the concept of multiplier effect, and I dont really need to come up with any details b/c you seem to want to argue just for the sake of argument.

I will just mention, though, that government investment in transportation was good and can be very good for the economy.  Also government investment in the social security system can be good and has been good for the economy.. the same is true if we were to invest in meaningful single payer healthcare... all good for society and the economy and with good multiplier effects   Devil is in the details, though in terms of where to draw the line exactly... b/c those are community decisions and NO place for me to be saying the exact applications.



 
 

 I presented several ideas already including how many hours people are working and how much they are being paid and are they receiving health care ...

All of these have deteriorated in the past 25 years or more.... so quality of life has gone down in the last 25 years or so.  We do NOT need to agree or argue about this.

If you believe that they have NOT gone down, then you can live with that perspective, I am NOT going to stop you from thinking that we are continuously progressing, if that is what you want to believe.



 

 I suggested that you may be relying too much on Fox news reports, and I doubt that is a personal attack to suggest that your information sources may be less than adequate.


I have no idea whether you are smarter than me, and I dont really care, and we have NO real way of knowing by reading some random thread posts whether one person is smarter than another or whether one person or another has better and more logical conclusions. 


 


Yep.. both of those examples show, in my thinking, that we are NOT better off now as compared with 25 years ago.. but you can go on thinking that we are better off, and I will go on thinking that we are NOT better off, and we do NOT need to resolve those kinds of questions here.

Don't be so pessimistic.  You have a lot of rights within the parameters of communities. 

This has always been the case and your right to punch your fist stops at my nose or at least right before you hit my nose as long as you are not getting in my space and threatening jme.. our rights and duties are reciprocal. 

You should already know these basic concepts about rights and obligations by living in communities and being educated in schools, but frequently we forget that our actions will sometimes affect others.  And, sometimes we are taught badly, too. 

We are also NOT robots and we can make several choices about how to act and about how to expend our personal resources and where to place our bets regarding career and other life choices. 

Each of us also have the right to vote and to participate and to attempt to pursuade others and to lobby and to speak out against what we believe to be unfair and/or unjust.

The good, bad and the ugly... they come together as a package and maybe we get a little more of one or a little less of another but surely I do NOT see the solution to be all or nothing or to strive towards extremes..   And, likely bitcoin is NOT going to resolve the need for compromises and human decision makers deciding public goods and sometimes messing it up.

There you go.. that is the logical solution to weed out those who cannot provide for themselves... survival of the fittest.. including getting rid of all accommodations for disabilities and the old people NO longer serve a function neither.

NOW.. .you are bordering into incomprehension.. and silliness.


The only difference between theft and robbery is that robbery is a taking of property that  is accomplished with a threat of violence or violence.

Now, you are going thru a child-ish moment.  I have NOT really gotten too substantively into talking about which programs I like or what I do NOT like, yet frequently, I have suggested that in theory the USA is a democracy, and accordingly people should be deciding NOT money. 

Personally, there is an internal tension between democracy and capitalism, and people try to act as if they are nearly one of the same.. like peanut butter and jelly ... or some other analogy...   Yet, even though we claim to have political institutions that embrace democracy, we allow the capitalists to call the shots - which is the part that I find very unfortunate.  I am NOT suggesting to do away with it all yet in my humble bumble opinion there needs to be some focus reform points, and one of the most important reform points is to get more and better democratic input into choosing our leaders and our institutions and the distribution of our resources. 

It may be the case, that there remains quite a bit of allowance for the military, even with democratic decision-making; however, I get the sense that a lot of the shenanigans would be removed especially some of the more lucrative aspects of the droning and the military contractors who are being paid more than 4 times more than regular soldiers.. and the war profiteering is a bit out of control.. with some of the non-bid contract providers.

I'm just suggesting that the people decide.. and that is NOT just my preference, and I am willing to live and accept when the people decide what they want, even if it does NOT make a lot of sense to me on an individual preference level... but that will NOT stop me from speaking or writing my input.. so long as free speech is allowed in this new or evolving system.

That is what I was thinking, too.  And even if BTC is going to $10k soon,but then half a million is NOT really enough either... and would a person cash out or diversify part of that BTC portfolio.  My actions would depend in part about how quickly the price goes up and then for how long do I expect it to stay there and what had apparently caused the upswing.

I blame the money in politics that have NOT kept the rich people (and industries) in check - especially regarding the denigration of the food supply.   

You cannot just pick and choose.. sorry about that, unless you can go live on an island somewhere and minimize your interactions with any community or government.  Good luck.

You cannot really opt out b/c government services are nearly everywhere.  So you have to learn how to live amongst other people.. you do NOT have this planet to yourself.  So if you want to call that coercion, then so be it.

We can agree to disagree and I am NOT going to play into simplified framework.  Your framework attempts to trivialize the role of government, and to engage in distracting and unnecessary inflammations by attempting to trivialize the role of government and the necessity of taxes in order to spread out the burden.  Surely, there may be better ways to distribute resources and to construct tax mechanisms and to fix community input, but the burden remains on you if you want to describe how society transforms from its current state to a state without taxes or without government or even minimal taxes and government.

Too simple to merely say, let's get rid of government and taxes b/c they are like rape...

Yeah, but it still becomes a public decision about where to draw the line and whether to have any kind of military.  Currently, those decisions do NOT seem to be made be responsible and/or responsive politicians in terms of what the public wants... yet these public feelings evolve when they get scared, too.

No s/he (deeplink) wants the benefits of the infrastructure or clean air, but s/he does NOT want to contribute to such preservation and/or creation. 

Seems like a typical definition of either a freeloader or a leech or an opportunist or a selfish bastard... or to give the benefit of the doubt, maybe s/he has NOT thought that far ahead?