I'm familiar with all of these except Dank (just haven't taken the time to acquaint myself.

Erik Voorhees probably belongs on the list - I'd put him just below Matonis.

Goat?

Yeah, Johnson isn't going to win but I'm going to vote for him anyway. It'll at least send a message that maybe a few people will hear.

Romney isn't going to win either. A vote for him is just pointless. (I do admit a very tiny chance that Obama screws up massively several times causing a Romney win, but the likelihood is so small I'd rather chance money on the lottery.)

Having bought sheet silver, I don't find it hard to believe at all.

I'll make sure you get a few brochures too.

I was there for the closing arguments.

BTW, he's originally from Wi, but lives in NH these days.

How about some Shire Silver as well? By the end of this week I might be able to send a silver card as well as a gold card. I do know that many people don't quite get what Shire Silver is until they actually see it in person.

I'd imagined something more like an erlenmeyer flask, maybe with a flame underneath it.

My guess would be that people heavy into bitcoins, such as bitcoin site webmasters, are going to be fairly anti-Google due to their perceived evilness. They might also want to promote one of the bitcoin based advertising options.

IMHO, all these should probably be in the waiting state now, but none of them can actually be confirmed until the actual convention. What would happen if Paul Ryan were to get hit by a bus? Its not likely that the outcome will change, but it is still possible.

Well, if YARR were to drop back down then why not pick up more? But there's always other options available. It depends on what the conditions at the time are.

But overall my strategy is roughly to risk the initial principle on BTCST derivatives and reinvest the dividends in safer choices. Once the non-BTCST investments reach parity with the original principle (which will be pretty soon for me) then even if BTCST disappears outright then I'm no worse off than before I started. But then I'm willing to take more risks than the average person.

I know I'm very heavy into pirate based investments right now, but then I need the growth more than the safety. My medium to longer term strategy is to gradually shift my dividend reinvestments from pirate based to safer stuff like mining. I don't believe BTCST will last forever, but am hopeful that it winds down nicely when it needs to. In this manner I hope to gradually grow into more safety.

One thing I do like to do is when I buy some shares I figure out what price I'd sell for and set up the sell. For example, I might buy 10 shares of YARR for 1.6 and immediately place a sell order for 10 at 1.9 - that way if for some reason it jumps up I make a nice deal. When I first started BTC investing I did that for some PPT.x shares and made a better deal than holding them would have.

Yes. He is the porcupine realtor and thus pretty much outed as such. He's also a great activist and a heck of a nice guy.

Baklava at http://mandrik.com/

It almost certainly isn't legal for him to accept donations from foreigners, but how is anyone going to know?

If you do donate more than $100 worth, you should include your name, employer, and city/town as directed. Of course that can't readily be enforced, but since his donation address is public his opponents could check it for large donations that don't get disclosed. (In other words, if you are going to donate a lot or are foreign, donate it in small chunks from varying addresses.)

Knowing Mark (a really good guy), any donations he cannot legally use and can't figure out how to return would get donated to worthy causes.

Did you visit the link I posted? Its to a gold product, not silver. Shire Silver is a brand.

Also, there's no such thing as intrinsic value. The cards are worth more than spot price because of the added values like putting the metal into a more usable form suitable for everyday trade. But of course, what it will trade for is up to the market, just like with bitcoins (which also have no intrinsic value but trade as the market determines.)

Yes, when governments create the money, as in coining silver, they sometimes do it "for free". But the actual price of the coining is in the power it gives the government. Money is a product, and like any product it needs to make a profit of some sort for its producer. I would rather have that profit be readily observed and quantifiable as part of the price of the money than as an invisible lever of power wielded behind closed doors.

And Gresham's Law only applies when government forces people to accept bad money. Bitcoin (and others) will outcompete even government monopoly money and put an end to legal tender laws that enable Gresham.

For now. The bitcoin market is growing rapidly though.

See Shire Silver for the counterargument to gold not being usable in everyday trade.

I think bitcoins and Shire Silver complement each other nicely. Bitcoins are great for Internet and other electronic transactions, while Shire Silver fulfills the need for in-person anonymous transactions.

Correct. My product is intended for use in trade and not investing. I do think it complements bitcoins nicely, being useful in situations where bitcoins don't fare as well such as in-person anonymous transactions. And of course, as the market grows it will become more and more recognizable - just like bitcoins.

Just an FYI, at Shire Silver we do need a good email address and shipping address, but we routinely delete completed orders a few months after we get delivery confirmation.

Having only read the Triffin wiki page, it seems to only apply to government currencies. A gold standard would be unworkable, but a gold currency that was unrestrained by politicians should work.

I can't speak for the other precious metal vendors, but Shire Silver doesn't have inventory. There's a few reasons for this.

• It eliminates the prospect of loss due to price movements (while also eliminating increased profit potential).
• We just plain aren't capitalized enough to afford it.
• It makes the possibility of legal plunder (seizing the inventory by law enforcement) moot.

That does mean that it can take up to two weeks to get domestic orders delivered, but that's not bad compared to many of the big name precious metal dealers.