The only economic philosophy that respects the right of people to transact bitcoins without interference is capitalism.
Capitalism is an invenion of the state. Without bureaucracy and state sanctioning, capitalism is not possble. The very idea of a free capitalism is oxymoronic, because it relies on protection of claims on private property. Maybe... if you assume that all protection must be only from state, and that more people are wicked than not. But these assumptions seem extreme, and depressingly pessimistic. It's not extreme. It's empiric history instead of science fiction, plain and simple. Our premises are too far apart. We have little hope at agreement on this point. I do not experience the state as my protector, to you it is the only protector. I do not see wicked people everywhere, and you do. To you, I am fiction plain and simple. Whether historic fiction or science fiction I could not say. |
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My monthly spending was through the roof until I stopped factoring in the mortgage and gas. After that my spending dropped dramatically.
Next month I may stop factoring in the money I spend on food and I may start seeing a huge surplus in my household.
If you keep blowing your real money on Internet Monopoly Money, you won't have to worry about factoring in any of that anyways (because you'll be broke). Thank you for your conscientious concern for our well being. Americans are free to spend money on illusions. Thank you for protecting that freedom and not preventing us from wasting our wealth on Bitcoins. Your opinion on the matter is noticed, many disagree and like the illusion of math and software allowing us the opportunity to transact across great distances among ourselves with our monopoly money. It is a fun game for us. Thanks for watching us play, it is nice to have a audience generating advertising revenue for our forum creators. Even if you are never going to play, you are helping in your own way. I think what he's trying to say is that if you have faith and stick to dollars and there's a problem, then some of those who kept the faith will get bailed out when the troubles come. And you'd have a chance at those riches. If you just ... you know ... play the game right.... I don't know about that. Might be true but not what I was thinking. To him we are playing with illusions and monopoly money. Its his opinion, and he seems earnest in warning us from our folly. But we will mostly ignore that advice because we like what we are doing for our own reasons. To me he seems afraid of things that don't worry me. So i thank him for expressing his opinion here where doing so supports a cause that he himself does not support, the bitcoin business that is this forum. That unbridled kindness toward strangers deserves thanks. That he is also so very unconvincing in all that he writes is another small bonus. If some are convinced by the message of fear, than that shows places where education is needed and better messaging from those that better understand the issue. After all, he could be doing all this on quatloos instead. |
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My monthly spending was through the roof until I stopped factoring in the mortgage and gas. After that my spending dropped dramatically.
Next month I may stop factoring in the money I spend on food and I may start seeing a huge surplus in my household.
If you keep blowing your real money on Internet Monopoly Money, you won't have to worry about factoring in any of that anyways (because you'll be broke). Thank you for your conscientious concern for our well being. Americans are free to spend money on illusions. Thank you for protecting that freedom and not preventing us from wasting our wealth on Bitcoins. Your opinion on the matter is noticed, many disagree and like the illusion of math and software allowing us the opportunity to transact across great distances among ourselves with our monopoly money. It is a fun game for us. Thanks for watching us play, it is nice to have a audience generating advertising revenue for our forum creators. Even if you are never going to play, you are helping in your own way. |
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NewLiberty, excellent points. But remember our "real" opponents are outside the bitcoin community. We in the bitcoin community will always have varying opinions, however the energy we expend fighting these internal battles detracts from the "real" opponents which in the US is the currently the recent guidance that threatens the livelihood of everybitcoin business who wants to do business with US customers.
The opponents to bitcoin most real to me are those that fear it. Yes, outside the community. Understanding their fears, and helping to resolve any which are resolvable, by illuminating the darkness. I've no interest in fighting any internal or external battles at all. Just improving understanding. Your regulator is a person too. Many are more sympathetic to the notion of economic resilience than you might imagine, but they are going to fear that which they don't understand. One thing the C&D makes clear, this lack of understanding. |
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In the third option, you'll have 20 teams working, doing 100 procedures a year. All patients will be happy, and all doctors will be happy. Hopefully, the economy will continue to have enough profits for government to siphon them off to keep this setup going. But the two problems are, first, there's a real risk that the economy could get to a point where there isn't enough spare profit to support this, and second, everyone will be happy, and nothing will change. You'll have the same lung procedure done by the same people for decades, since there will be no incentive to either make the procedure cheaper, or to replace it with something different.
What if instead of the government doing this to us, folks choose what they want to reduce their costs on by prepaying through pooled insurance? Churches and Fraternal Organisations and other community groups used to do more of this but have been muscled out. |
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I tend to agree. They could start with a reply that they have ceased and desisted from all money transfer businesses. (Maybe they were planning some in the future?)
That would put the ball in the other side of the court, and at least let the State define what they are concerned about.
That's completely stupid - Why would you say you've stopped doing something you were never doing in the first place?? Are you on crack, NewLiberty? The burden of proof is on the state, dum-dum. What you're suggesting would actually cause them more trouble. I've gotten threatening letters from the government that didn't pertain to me in the past. I just filed them away and ignored them. I've been working on the assumption that the Foundation is going to respond. That is more or less the Foundation's reason for being. So although ignoring it would also be a sort of message, it doesn't take a foundation to do that. You and me can do that on our own as you wisely observed. Its something you learn in law school in America, how to be stupid in very specific ways. If one doesn't choose to rely on the pervasive government ennui or patriotism and are going to respond, the easiest disinfectant is bright light. Show them what you do and what you don't do. The Sacramentoans don't know the answer either, so if you don't want better funded competition to spend their effort on motivating the regulators to find something wrong, you can show the regulators something right. Invite audits, make them experts on Bitcoin, and teach them how it is good for people like them and us. But just a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing. Even that has risks. |
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c) I just don't see how, in the absence of government 'coercion', private enterprises would ever get the same kind of information. E.g.: surgery costs and patient numbers would be private and confidential. That information obviously has value to potential investors, but if it's all hidden in silos then the claimed "higher efficiency" of non-interventionism would just be an illusion. Efficiencies would only reach local maxima. The only reason this makes any sense is that National Governments have co-opted the insurance industry. Fear sells. |
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the same freedomz that birthed the good stuff also mothered slavery, dictatorships, fascism, etc., etc.
There's an old joke:
-Dad, what's the white stuff in bird shit?
-Son, that's bird shit too.
I doubt many here get the joke.
When is an ice cream cone not a cone? When its a koan. The white stuff, is also that the will to freedom ended these things many times. When birthing, the kids don't always turn out as you might like, insights for child-rearing notwithstanding. |
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Hyperinflation is dire tragedy on a massive scale.
High inflation is bad enough without raising the boogeyman of hyperinflation.
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The only economic philosophy that respects the right of people to transact bitcoins without interference is capitalism.
Capitalism is an invenion of the state. Without bureaucracy and state sanctioning, capitalism is not possble. The very idea of a free capitalism is oxymoronic, because it relies on protection of claims on private property. Maybe... if you assume that all protection must be only from state, and that more people are wicked than not. But these assumptions seem extreme, and depressingly pessimistic. |
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Looo! There is no universal "right price" which needs to be "discovered."
There is a price that the seller wants to get (everything, all your monyz!)...
and the price that the buyer wishes to pay (nothing).
The price is arrived at through the dialectic more commonly known as "haggling."
Here you add the word "universal" to make the statement false, then right call it so, in that form. Then provide an example of how it is true as stated originally.
This dialectic takes a different form in auctions. Consider an auction with a Luger Parabellum on the block.
The buyers are as follows:
A Texan homemaker, who came to the auction to bid on the awesome trimetal cookware set,
a gun collector who loves them Lugers to pieces
& a professional mugger, who plans to turn the luger on the folks in the crowd, thereby robbing them of their monyz.
Question: What's the "right price"?
And then you show how the price discovery is (slightly) improved by the addition of more (weirdly fictional) bargainers. Nothing to disagree with here, but not much to see either. |
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An economy is much better compared to a machine in operation than a static construction such as a bridge.
Or compare it to the marchers who have to adjust to the changing terrain in that scenario. Economies are affected by all sorts of obstacles: droughts, fertility cycles, disease, weather and more. It must adjust, or face a worse fate than if it had. The best decision makers for these adjustments are the myriad folks with their boots on the ground. When central command is from afar, marchers may not adjust as adroitly. This marching community may sing the same song and walk in cadence when times are easy, and move to a different tune when it is not. Perhaps, though in my army breaking ranks over a bridge analogy, neither the bridge nor the army represent the economy. Economy is the interaction between the two. The army does not act on economy, it is a part of it. If we choose your analogy, tossing out the bridge & picking up obstacles & terrain, we can no longe address MoonShadow's "oscillations," but since they flopped as a Libertarian illustration, i guess it's time to march off to greener pastures, over hill, over dale & other nasty terrain. In your model, were the "central command" represents [Booo! Statist!] oversight, think it through. The generals don't tell enlisted men how to march -- they lay out the grand plans for troop movement, so that the army doesn't march off in five different directions to fight 5 enemies of their choosing. At some lower level of decision making, another bureaucrat looks at terrain maps & aerial photos, making sure soldiers don't need to march through oceans, or lava pits with no health packs in sight if we're playing *that*. When it comes to picking up your feet to step over dead bodies, have no fear -- you'll still get to do that on your own  We agree, the best government is the most local. The anarchists go to the extreme in this respect and only the government within each person is sovereign. |
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Inflation rates are looking good too.   Some folks, such as these, see hidden dangers due to fiscal policy issues. My crystal ball is not so well polished, it could easily be otherwise. |
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I just don't get it how is the USD still so strong  Is the world filled idiots who want to except fractional reserved garbage forever when their are better ways to exchange value. The metals plunge i understand the fed is shorting the metals market but the USD/EUR rising i don't get . Fractional reserve is not so bad in itself, it really depends on the fraction, and what makes up the reserve. USD will rise when its interest rate to default likelihood is a better deal than whatever is the denominator. Its value is relative risk/reward. The EUR has its own constellation of issues. BTC could go to zero at a greater liklihood than most fiat (currently), so time deposits (bonds, CDs) that are BTC denominated should pay a higher rate than fiat to compensate for that risk. There is also default risk, and counter-party risk, which has to be compensated as well. Those risks are perceived as low due to Ben Bernanke's vote of confidence. He has a great track record on his public comments. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9QpD64GUoXw |
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 Pointless tangent is pointless. You picked on the word 'stable' and used it as an excuse to ignore the rest of my post: From a false premise, one can derive anything. Then WTF was MoonShadow talking about with the 'right' economy, describing it as not growing exponentially and basically being stable, but then doing a big song and dance about not calling it stable? I couldn't say what he was talking about with the 'right' economy. Just was noticing how you had changed what he said to something specifically different and then attacked that difference. He said "right", you said "stable" then further defined that as =0 change and mocked that. The subsequent post with specific growth targets and such seemed more like monetarism rather than keynesianism. I'm not convinced that either are laudable, so I'd have to let Moonshadow speak for himself on those. My premise was correct in the first place
We might disagree on that, what was it? |
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There's scant evidence that two heads are better than one, and absolutely none that a billion heads are better still. A mob's intelligence does not grow with its numbers, quality is not a function of quantity, though a shrewd Georgian once pointed out that "quantity is a quality all of its own." Everyone gets to be a wit.
Auctions explain. To discover the right price of something, an auction with only two people attending will not do as well as one with a great many. The mob does a better job of price discovery. When prices are set by a central authority and there are limited choices you get an arbitrarily price rather then letting folks decide what they want to exchange for what and how much at what quality. Generally, a market is going to do a better job of price discovery than a central planner. Perversely, we have central authorities deciding on the price of money itself. |
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adamstgBit(5750uAC) = Wallet[AC0m97S1|adamstgBit]->SendAbstractCoins( ACGr8Day|haveagr8day, 250 );
adamstgBit(5500uAC) = Wallet[AC0m97S1|adamstgBit]->SendAbstractCoins( ACLEZ37|Darktongue, 250 );
Confirmed adamstgBit(5250uAC) = Wallet[AC0m97S1|adamstgBit]->SendAbstractCoins( ACN1KKE1|Praxis , 250 ); confirmed adamstgBit(5000uAC) = Wallet[AC0m97S1|adamstgBit]->SendAbstractCoins( ACN1KKE1|Praxis , 250 ); Confirmed |
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This is what inflation is, ready yourselves
A little whisper from Ben that they might someday consider buying less, it scares away other bond buyers, and the Fed gets a bunch more interest on their T-bills, the economy slows, and the Fed own an increasing share of US debt for the next generation and a half. |
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I tend to agree. They could start with a reply that they have ceased and desisted from all money transfer businesses. (Maybe they were planning some in the future?)
That would put the ball in the other side of the court, and at least let the State define what they are concerned about.
That reply admits guilt in the first line. No, it doesn't. Compliance on first notice is not evidence of non-compliance. And if it is alleged, the burden shifts, and we should doubt they have probable cause for more than the C&D, so no indictment, or summary dismissal. Unless there is a witness to the contrary. But their lawyers have the whole range from which to formulate the whole reply. "We have never done money transfer business." "We have no plans on doing any money transfer business" "If we did plan to do money transfer business, we would fully intend to comply with the relevant structures." "If we did any money transfer business, it is beneath the scope of the regulation." "If we did any money transfer business it was not intentional." "All money transfer business, if there were any, have ceased." "We are engaging in an audit from xxx auditor to assess whether we are engaging in any MTB, and we expect this report on yyy." "Go jump in a lake to cool your jets." The catch is you have to not lie, because then you have fraud, tax evasion, and jail. So only council under a-c privilege really has the details on what to do. Out here in the peanut gallery, we can only speculate... |
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