The more hash involved with obviously lessen the amount of coins you will mine per day. Just keep mining and collecting. Hash goes up and down and big hashers that come into the pool are only pit stoppers..!  I've been enjoying the easy coin collecting, but at some point here we're going to want the network hash rate to go up significantly and hold there. If you want SPN to be high in price, you want the network hash rate to be high enough so that it's a better deal for anyone wanting more SPN to buy it than to mine it. |
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Things like communications skills, writing skills, a whole host of technical skills, networking with people, and even personal growth can be very beneficial. Despite getting solid engineering degrees, I probably learned more about myself and other people than the subjects I studied. I also formed some of the best relationships of my life. I don't think that would have been possible without being in a setting where I was surrounded solely by other people my own age.
This is a very good point. However you do not need to get a college degree (finish your degree) to have these skills. You really only need to attend college for "several" semesters. And you could imagine other settings where you can get those skills as well What other settings? I'm not saying you're wrong, but at least for me, I don't think it would have been possible elsewhere. College tuitions have been rising exponentially mostly because of the State involvement in the education market and the price to pay is becoming tremendous : if you don't acquire enough skills or don't have other qualities a sole college degree will be close to worthless
When the State intervenes in a market the prices go up : heath, education ect. When the private sector is let free the prices go down
By State intervention, I assume you mean offering all kinds of student loans. State schools can be a great way to save money, but yes, the availability of lots of money for loans seems to driving up tuition as it enables more demand than there would otherwise be. |
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It occurs to me that a solution requires a problem. Why is poverty a problem? Someone define it in clear and non-emotional terms.
That's an interesting question. But how can you remove the emotional component when one of the most fundamental goals in life is happiness? If you want to completely remove emotions from the equation, then please explain to me why we should care about atrocities like the slaughter of innocent children. Emotion can justify and rationalize anything. Money is ultimately about the movement of resources, a very fact-driven thing. Emotion can certainly be abused, but so can logic. I think a balance is necessary, where true compassion is a critical element of the emotional side. I agree that money is an easily moveable/exchangeable form of resources/time/work. But money is nothing but a tool to get happiness, even if for some that just means collecting it. My take, after some thought: In a healthy economy money goes to those who produce or otherwise perform a useful function for society. The more productive the more money, the more useless the greater the poverty.
In a society where survival depends on maximizing the use of available resources this is obviously the case. We live in a time of abundance, so we no longer seek to maximize the use of resources. But it would still be desirable to do so, because everyone would be wealthier in real terms, if not in relation to eachother, which would make it possible to work fewer hours and spend more time on self-actualization which according to one school of thought is the way to happiness. It would also reduce the risk of economic collapse, ensuring that it is not a bubble-period of wealth but a sustained one far into the future.
Thus, in a healthy economy where the use of resources is maximized poverty is a good thing for society but a shitty thing for the individual; but it is also fair. Likewise, wealthy people would have earned their wealth so that too would be fair. And charity is always available for those of a socialist mindset, so there is nothing stopping you from giving your money away. But it would be voluntary, and not enforced at gunpoint as it is presently.
In a society where there is little or no relation between personal ability/use to society and the amount of money one has, poverty is a problem for wider society and wealthy people become villains. It also creates what some people call perverse incentives. I live in one of the biggest welfare nations in the world (Denmark). People who can't or won't work are paid enough every month to live a pretty decent life in exchange for little to no work. The more useless and difficult you present yourself the less is demanded of you. Thus, the optimum effort to income ratio is to be unemployed and unemployable, and as difficult to deal with as possible within the bounds of the rules.
Maximizing the use of resources would be great. But that requires that everyone is concerned about the collective good, which doesn't seem to be the case a lot of the time. Your ideal healthy economy does sound nice. Reading between the lines, it sounds like you're saying that everyone would basically be able to choose how much wealth they get by choosing how much they want to work. If you're poor, then it really is because you chose it; you had the opportunity for better but chose not to take it. I think the issue is that there's a lot of abuse at both ends (poor and rich). Too many people try to take advantage of the system instead of working. And too many rich people use their wealth to buy power, which they use to collect more wealth in ways that usually aren't "fair," which leads to a villainous reputation. Sadly, these stereotypes mask the poor people who really do need help and the rich people who do really good things with their wealth. (Edit: hopefully that all makes sense. I'm a little scattered-brained right now.) |
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Bitcoin's concept of anonymity is a hot target for the greedy. Its structure helps criminals do their criminal acts. They can easily participate on illegal transactions without being traced (or a high possibility of not being traced) by the authority. Decentralization also helps them in accomplishing some serious thefts and laundering because nobody has the power to freeze their money unless they're traced by the government. This is just one of the many things why merchants all over the world doesn't accept the idea of using bitcoin into their business. It seems to risky for them to touch knowing that there are many possibilities that they can be victimized by theft and frauds.
Step 1: Company registers with BitPay. Step 2: Nothing. In one step, the company has now avoided any issues with potential fraud, theft, and even price volatility. Conclusion: "Risk" is a poor reason for a merchant to decide not to use BTC because payment processors like BitPay eliminate the risk. I generally agree, although I would point out that there's still some risk. I don't know all of BitPay's terms and conditions (or Coinbase's), but I'm guessing that they can't guarantee the exchange rate if they have technical difficulties. On the surface, this would seem like a very minor issue that would likely have little impact, even if it happened, as it would likely be short-lived. However, the greatest chances of having such problems usually occur during times of exceptionally high volume, such as during a crash. I'm not exactly sure how they do it now, but I believe BitPay used to take data from the top 3 leading exchanges in terms of price, rule out the third, then average the top two (I always thought this was strange since ruling out the third would be unnecessary if you just looked at the top two, so I'm guessing there's a chance I misunderstood something). I suppose there may be a window with a duration of a few seconds during which extreme volatility still might lead to a nasty surprise for the merchant, but I'm not so sure about this. Whenever I send BTC to my BitPay account, I usually receive notice of my deposit credited as USD within about 3-5 seconds (via both an SMS text and an email). I'm not sure what happens during these few seconds, but the window for risk seems *exceptionally* small, if there is one. And, in the event of some technical difficulties on BitPay's end, I'd imagine they would eat the loss if such difficulties were to occur. Merchants also have the ability to set the ratio of BTC they retain. They could, for example, choose to receive 100% of the converted BTC value in USD, or they could choose to retain 100% BTC, or any ratio inbetween. This would allow a merchant to cash out manually at the time they choose, though I don't see how this would give you any more advantage at avoiding loss due to volatility than by letting BitPay do the conversion automatically. I think the chances of accepting a bad check would far outweigh the chances of loss due to volatility while using a payment processor. There will always be a hypothetical scenario for risk involved with accepting any currency, but this method of accepting payment seems less risky than many others. I don't know all the ins and outs of BitPay and Coinbase, either, but my guess is that they protect themselves from quick, small price movements using a greater spread between the buy and sell prices. That and/or they may make sure that they match up buys and sells appropriately by locking in the price for a (probably short) period of time. At least on Coinbase, they don't show you the market depth, so they can probably toy with things as they need to in order to make sure that they don't lose money. I agree that under the vast majority of circumstances, exchange value loss shouldn't be a problem. So let me explain a little better. I wasn't into bitcoin during some the craziest run ups and crashes last year, so I don't know how robust the exchanges are. But in the stock and futures markets, for example, during times of exceptionally high volume (e.g., flash crashes), I've heard that the computer systems can become overwhelmed, which can lead to much longer order execution times and possible system crashes. Didn't Mt. Gox have major issues during one of the run ups/crashes earlier last year, such that it took minutes or hours for orders to be executed? If that kind of thing happened during a major crash--if it took an hour to execute your trade, or worse, the severs go down--you could easily lose 10-20% or more of the exchange value of your coins. The odds are very small, but the loss potential is pretty high. |
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Do you have any prove that BCT is cheating? I am 100% sure that mintpal already noticed this 15 BTC sellwall at 1 satoshi on c-cex exchange. Unfortunately, I am sure SPN will never reach mintpal so I will never finally sell my stash  Despite what your saying about mintpal never adding us. This is unfounded, we are #6 on their list through organic votes... This shows community interest in itself. Not to mention the fact that that sell wall would half as soon as another exchange is added as people split their coins between the two. Mintpal are looking for stable coins that aren't pump and dumps as the pump and dumps are high maintenance and low profit for them. At no point has SPN pumped or dumped. This is a long term investment and long term coin, ultimately the profit made through transaction of a coin with this status, coupled with some major development releases would be a good investment of time for them. Consider, too, that Mintpal isn't closing down in a few weeks. They're just going to end the voting system. They'll still add coins. And if I were they, I would look at the remaining top coins on their list for candidates. So even if we don't make it before voting ends, that doesn't mean SPN won't be added later for the reasons that DarTrix gives. |
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It occurs to me that a solution requires a problem. Why is poverty a problem? Someone define it in clear and non-emotional terms.
That's an interesting question. But how can you remove the emotional component when one of the most fundamental goals in life is happiness? If you want to completely remove emotions from the equation, then please explain to me why we should care about atrocities like the slaughter of innocent children. |
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Do you really believe that the government should be able to trace your transactions? I don't. I believe in privacy rights, my money is my money to do with as I wish, without the government looking over my shoulder, until I am proven guilty of a crime.
I agree that privacy is important, but why would I care whether the government can trace my transactions? I'm just an average guy--one of 300M people in the US. I don't do anything illegal, so what difference does it make? No one else cares what I do. Edit: Actually, that's not true. Companies care what I do so they can spam me. If I want anonymity for anything, it's so that companies don't know how I spend my money. I don't care about the government. |
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I don't believe in karma, and I don't believe in coincidence. It seems pretty obvious to me that doing good does not always come back to you in good ways and doing bad does not always come back to you in bad ways--not in this life anyway. It also seems to me that everything happens for a reason, even if the reason is sometimes trivial or not known for a very long time.
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Got my coins the escrow saying i m a busy man .. so dont spam .. shit how i foget.. ma
haha, told you it will turn out Ok  Take care man, and try to relax sometimes! yeah the main reason i got stunned that the buyer is saying me fuck off .. and started using abusive language after i gave him details.. lol dat_felling That is the exact reason to use escrows, sure the buyer will fuck you over if he gets the chance, with escrow he can't do that, because the escrow will decide if you earn the money. But you still need to be very careful about whom you trust for your escrow. Trust ratings help, but unless you actually know the escrower, it can be just as dangerous to trust someone to take care of the escrow as it is to trust the person with whom you're transacting. |
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Sadly, $1M isn't really enough to retire on these days, but I'd see how close I could get with it. It's not that I want to stop being productive; I just want to stop doing a job where I'm told what to do. I want to create my own things my own way. And I want to be able to spend a little more time the people I love. 40 hours a week doesn't sound like much, but it does eat up a significant portion of one's available time (after all the necessities like sleeping, eating, etc.).
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I love nature, so I'd love to see some of the US national parks, mountains, forests, etc. I haven't had much time to visit these places yet, so I better start working on it. |
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I got a decent Logitech optical mouse as a gift about 10 years ago. It's nothing fancy--just the usual buttons, a wheel, and one other button for a little extra functionality. It still works just about as well today as it did 10 years ago. If I ever need a new mouse, I'm going with Logitech again.
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Ok, seriously, why do people do this crap (stealing passwords and other info)? It just wastes everyone's time. There are so many better, constructive things that people can do with their lives.
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Does it occur to you that you are one step closer to your death? My own birthday is only in couple days and every year I feel like my time here on Earth is ticking out... You may enjoy your life at its fullest, before its is too late. Live with no regrets... That is all.
I'm not sure how to look at this. On one hand, it sounds sad and depressing. But on the other, it sounds like a really good way to look at things if it motivates you to live a good, full life. Personally, I would say that getting drunk, stoned, whatever is very overrated. Spend your birthday doing something you love with people you love. Or at least don't do anything stupid that you will regret later. Have a happy birthday! |
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You are right indeed. But we are choosing not between the good and the bad, but rather between the lesser of the two evils. The worse being a default, so what would the US choose? Actually, we already know the answer, since the debt ceiling was already raised in the conditions when the US government had been no longer able to pay out interest.
Ok, fair enough. If we have to choose between printing and default, then yes, printing is preferable. Ironically, however, if we print too much, we'll probably be forced into default anyway because no one wants to hold on to bonds issued by a country that's massively devaluing their currency. This would be true if other countries wouldn't actually fdo the same, i.e. devaluate their currencies all along with the US printing money. This is called competitive devaluation. When all the countries (or most countries) use QE then the exchange rates stay roughly the same while global inflation rises (or deflation is less) Yes, very true, which is why it's worked so well so far. But I'm thinking of an acute case of devaluation brought on by a crisis in which treasuries crash. For example, the government says they're going to increase the money supply by 10% overnight to pay off a bunch of bonds. Although, I suppose such large amounts wouldn't be needed immediately anyway since paying off bonds continues to happen on sort of a rolling basis, where some payments are made every week or month on different numbers of treasuries. In any case, if we have to devalue the dollar a lot in a short period of time, it may make people sell. |
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So they say indeed. However, less consumption means less wasting the Earth's resources. Who gives a shit about GDP. Anyone can invent their 3-letter economic evaluation indicator. I can suck one out from my finger right now if needed. If it is so god damn important then why not develop a 3-letter variable that is especially designed for deflation? edit: can't believe GDP is recognized by the Firefox spell checker and DMT is not. CONSPIRACY!!!  They want us to be obsessed by GDP. Assuming the population of a country isn't decreasing, another way of saying negative GDP is decreased standard of living. That's why people care. And I agree that there's too much waste, but I don't think that economic catastrophe is the way to solve that problem. |
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"Socialism or Capitalism?"
Not a lot of difference between the two in reality. Both rife with corruption and greed. Money is always funnelled to the already rich and powerful in both cases. The poor stay poor.
There is a huge difference between socialism and capitalism. With capitalism you have opportunities to climb the economic ladder if you are smart and work hard. With capitalism everyone has a fair chance to succeed. With socialism everyone gets the same amount of resources (money) regardless of how much/hard you work. This is not true--not everyone gets the opportunity to succeed. I agree that there's more opportunity and incentive under capitalism than socialism, but only some have access to it. If you grow up in a crappy area with a crappy education system, even if you try hard, you may not do well because you aren't given a good set of tools to begin with. Not to mention that people who grow up in such situations probably don't have a lot of hope. If, for example, they see their parents work hard but not get very far, it's hard to believe that you stand any better chance. Sure, some people are given opportunity and blow it, but I think that some people aren't given it in the first place. |
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do you think we`ll see something again like 2008? Its been 6 years already ever since that moment.
The 2008 collapse was something that generally happens less then once per lifetime. The conditions to get the 2008 collapse are all there only bigger : reckless doing, 0% interest rate, government manipulation of markets, heavy regulation; except this time they will probably inflate the USD to make everyone whole so the stock market may not nominally go down What caused the 2008 collapse was loose lending for houses (this also spilled over into other types of lending as well), we are not seeing that today. A secondary factor that contributed to the 2008 collapse was excess leverage at banks so investors could not determine if they had sufficient capital to survive. Lose lending was encouraged by the FED and the government with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac We have exactly the same situation now with very low interests rates that create the bubble, except now it is bigger, the same that were in denied are still in denied because they are participating to the foolish bubble It does seem like housing may be getting into bubble territory again. But what's a lot scarier, IMO, is the bubble in US treasuries. If/when that sucker pops, interest rates will spike, and the US will be screwed. We've been borrowing many trillions on the assumption that we get to keep financing all that at a couple percent. If interest rates go up 2-3x or more, the extra drain on tax money or loss of government spending will probably throw us into a nasty recession. This won't happen since Congress will pass an act and Fed will print as much money as needed to cover all outstanding debts. And with the newly printed dollars, the happy US treasury bearers would buy even more US treasuries. As I stated in one of my posts above, it's not that simple--you can't just print money like that. There are a lot of extra consequences, and a lot of assumptions that everything else in the scenario we're discussing is as it is now. If interest rates triple, that already means that a lot of people are losing faith in US treasuries. If the US just starts blatantly creating trillions of dollars, all faith will be lost and treasuries will crash very hard. It doesn't matter if people have tons of extra money to invest. They'll be plowing it into investments that go up with inflation, unlike treasuries and bonds, which go down. Of course, the other part of this is what's happening to the economy while treasuries are crashing. If it's sliding into a recession/depression (which is quite plausible), then deflation could take hold, which might make bonds look more attractive. But treasuries would likely still suck. You are right indeed. But we are choosing not between the good and the bad, but rather between the lesser of the two evils. The worse being a default, so what would the US choose? Actually, we already know the answer, since the debt ceiling was already raised in the conditions when the US government had been no longer able to pay out interest. Ok, fair enough. If we have to choose between printing and default, then yes, printing is preferable. Ironically, however, if we print too much, we'll probably be forced into default anyway because no one wants to hold on to bonds issued by a country that's massively devaluing their currency. |
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do you think we`ll see something again like 2008? Its been 6 years already ever since that moment.
The 2008 collapse was something that generally happens less then once per lifetime. The conditions to get the 2008 collapse are all there only bigger : reckless doing, 0% interest rate, government manipulation of markets, heavy regulation; except this time they will probably inflate the USD to make everyone whole so the stock market may not nominally go down What caused the 2008 collapse was loose lending for houses (this also spilled over into other types of lending as well), we are not seeing that today. A secondary factor that contributed to the 2008 collapse was excess leverage at banks so investors could not determine if they had sufficient capital to survive. Lose lending was encouraged by the FED and the government with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac We have exactly the same situation now with very low interests rates that create the bubble, except now it is bigger, the same that were in denied are still in denied because they are participating to the foolish bubble It does seem like housing may be getting into bubble territory again. But what's a lot scarier, IMO, is the bubble in US treasuries. If/when that sucker pops, interest rates will spike, and the US will be screwed. We've been borrowing many trillions on the assumption that we get to keep financing all that at a couple percent. If interest rates go up 2-3x or more, the extra drain on tax money or loss of government spending will probably throw us into a nasty recession. This won't happen since Congress will pass an act and Fed will print as much money as needed to cover all outstanding debts. And with the newly printed dollars, the happy US treasury bearers would buy even more US treasuries. As I stated in one of my posts above, it's not that simple--you can't just print money like that. There are a lot of extra consequences, and a lot of assumptions that everything else in the scenario we're discussing is as it is now. If interest rates triple, that already means that a lot of people are losing faith in US treasuries. If the US just starts blatantly creating trillions of dollars, all faith will be lost and treasuries will crash very hard. It doesn't matter if people have tons of extra money to invest. They'll be plowing it into investments that go up with inflation, unlike treasuries and bonds, which go down. Of course, the other part of this is what's happening to the economy while treasuries are crashing. If it's sliding into a recession/depression (which is quite plausible), then deflation could take hold, which might make bonds look more attractive. But treasuries would likely still suck. |
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Unfunded liability such as social security and pension are not counted toward the National debt figure.
The money need to be printed in the coming years will be staggering as baby boomer starting to retire.
Actually, the money spent by the Fed on assets was essentially "printed" though technically "created" by Bernanke pressing a button. This is why so many people thought there would be a lot of inflation right now in the USA. However, the velocity of money dropped and so inflation has yet to show up. This has enabled left of center economists like Paul Krugman to claim that more of the same is needed to create full employment. This still does not account for the unfunded liabilities. Our country needs serious entitlement reforms in order for us to be able to continue paying our bills. I'm sorry to jump all over this, but the words "entitlement reforms" make me mad. First, I very much dislike how people use "reform" to try to make screwing over people's lives (seriously in some cases) sound like an improvement. And second, "entitlement" is a poor way of describing things like Social Security and Medicare because of all the connotations the word has. I think they are better described as paid-for benefits. You pay into the system to earn a benefit in the future. That said, I don't fault you personally for using those terms as, unfortunately, they've caught on. |
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