Free market competition is wasteful by definition because effective competition always requires some duplication of work before the winner emerges and specialization can occur.

It's less wasteful than central planning in most cases, but it's still wasteful.
 

Austria, duh! 

10th richest country in the world per capita.  Whether that's a result of the former finance minister's Karl Heinz Grasser's policies is debatable though.

Grasser is a self-proclaimed Austrian (one of the few Austrians who actually come from Austria!)

Wie war das nochmal, "den Händlern ist es egal ob Bitcoin dezentralisiert ist oder nicht"?

Dieses Beispiel zeigt doch dass ein Händler durchaus Interesse daran haben sollte, ein dezentralisiertes, unabhaengiges Zahlungsmittel zu verwenden.  Sonst ist er der Willkuer des Zahlungsmittelbetreibers volkommen ausgeliefert!

Ich verkaufe dir gerne 10 BTC fuer Paypal.  Unter der Bedingung dass du die BTC erst 6 Monate nach der Paypal-Ueberweisung bekommst. Solange dauert es naemlich bei Paypal, bis das Geld dass ich bekomme wirklich mir gehoert!

Wenn überweisung nicht in Frage kommt, dann schlage ich vor: Cash per Brief (langsam) oder Western Union (teuer).

Siehe:

https://www.nanaimogold.com/buy.php

Exposure was bigger in May and June than this month.

In fact, there is a good correlation between Bitcoin popularity and price, as evidenced by google trends and alexa rankings.

I don't think it must.  The US has one of the lowest tax rates of all developed countries. See:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tax_revenue_as_percentage_of_GDP

If the US increased general taxation from 25% of GPD to approx 50% of GPD, then it could pay back its public debt in less than 3 years.

The debt problem in the US is political more than economic.

A restart would not result in a more equal distribution of wealth. We would see the same approximate Pareto distribution.

Except that this time, the richest bitcoiners would not be geeky early adopters but City Boys from Wall Street and Canary Wharf who can afford to lose $1 M on a high risk investment.

What difference does it make?

So they move to states that are gay-friendly like California and form gay colonies, thus taking away tax dollars and brainpower from gay-unfriendly states.  (statistically, gays are more wealthy and industrious than non-gays).  

That is an example of competitive government, though an imperfect one.

The question is: Would gays be better off in an anarchy where the majority is homophobic? I seriously doubt it. An anarchy has no "bill of rights".  They would be marginalized and ostracized by the major Personal Defense Agencies to the point of being unable to function in society ... until they congregate in a gay colony somewhere far away and form their own Personal Defense Agency.  

Either way, they are still forced to move.

In principle I agree with you, I just think that your scale is not practicable.  Democratic government is a necessary evil, because without it, the stronger members of society start bullying the weaker members of society until a mafia emerges that doesn't give a shit about the non-aggression principle.

I would love to be proven wrong though...

That's why I'm a believer in highly federated, localized "competitive government".  

I agree that democracy fails when it becomes too large and too centralized.

If people can not be trusted to build airplanes that won't fall out of the sky, then how can they be trusted to choose good airplane manufacturers?

Actually, you are not granting a person the right to do something that you don't have the right to do yourself.  

You are surrendering some of your rights to an abstract entity called democratic government , and you are only surrendering them under the condition that every other person living under this governments also surrenders their rights.

Even the leaders working for that government have surrendered their rights just like you. They are not privileged as individuals. They cannot exert power arbitrarily. They can only do so as a collective.

If doctors can't treat themselves then what hope to they have to treat others?

If (most) humans can't build passenger aircraft what hope to they have to let others build aircraft for them?

see the flaw?

Politicians are supposed to be representatives of the people and they are supposed to be competent and informed enough to make decisions about public goods that the average joe is too ignorant and incompetent to make.  Not saying that this is always true in practice though...

Nothing that is 100% predictable creates a shock to the market.

Everyone is an extremist from somebody's point of view.

I don't think bitcoin is incompatible with loans.

Once bitcoin matures reaches a stable user base, the rate of deflation will correspond roughly to the rate of global economic growth.

Say for the sake of argument that this is 5%. (There will be fluctuations above and below this mean, but lenders and borrowers can hedge against those).

Say for the sake of argument that the rate of inflation of fiat currency is 3%.

Say that a lender is prepared to lend at a real interest rate of 10%.  Then he could either offer a bitcoin loan at a nominal interest rate of 5% or of fiat loan at a nominal interest rate of 13%.  Competition will push towards a market equilibrium with this 7% points difference between fiat and bitcoin interest rates.  Then it makes no difference what currency you lend in, you are getting the same real interest rate for both.

The only thing that would not be viable would be lending bitcoins with a real interest rate below 5%, because you can make more money by just sitting on your bitcoins.  But that would not be viable with fiat money either.  Why would anyone lend for a real interest rate below 5%, if they can get 5% returns simply by investing in the  global economy?

No he didn't. His intentions are perfectly clear from the snooty response he posted.

I fully agree.  This is perceived as an "official" forum. We should maket it clear that the vast majority of the bitcoin community utterly condemns the initiation of violence.

What is needed is an ostracism market.   

If being an asshole (even if technically legal) hurt people's and corporations' reputation more it would also hurt their business.  Then they would think twice about being assholes.

Pool attacks are a good thing because they increase "effective difficulty".  

Gold has a lousy security track record.  It's supposed to be crisis-proof but during wars and economic collapses gold usually gets looted, confiscated, burgled, extorted, lost, and left behind on a massive scale.

What matters is that people perceive gold as secure though, even though in practice it isn't.