Really? The exchange that controls 80% of Bitcoin trading can declare a "market cooldown" period whenever it wants for as long as it wants, and you call that a free market?

I don't.

It's rather shocking how little people understand about money and the distribution thereof. I remember reading not long ago about how some organization (one with socialist roots, by the way) claimed that the worlds wealthiest people could end poverty 4 times over...it's simply not true - not even close.

The thing is, anything other than a fiat currency is a resource that is available in finite supply. Taking from the rich and giving to the poor doesn't solve that problem. In addition, the more money that one has, the less they actually value it. Compare somebody who makes $30,000 a year to say Bill Gates.

The $30k guy will probably balk at paying $3 for a 16 ounce soda in a movie theater and probably prefer to either sneak one in or just go without. Bill Gates on the other hand wouldn't really care; he's got so much money that the $3 doesn't really mean anything to him. To him it's worth the convenience of buying it there rather than sneaking it in.

Another way to look at it is if you compare your currency to a material good. I tried to explain this to a socialist guy who likes his nokia lumia 920. I asked him if owning a second lumia 920 would be every bit as valuable to him as the first one he owns. Of course not. The more he owns, the less he values them. He'd be more willing to trade one away for something else than to just keep it - even if that something else is worth less on the open market than what he gave them.

It's for this reason that if you just play Robin Hood with available supply money, all you end up doing is causing inflation. Inflation is generally defined by people valuing their money less, which leads to a general rise in prices. Giving people more money does exactly that. While they may have more cash, their purchasing power has not increased. The scarcity of goods remains the same. Poverty isn't defined by how much money one has, but by how much wealth they have. Note the distinction between wealth and money. Money can buy wealth, but if you reduce the value of money in the process of redistributing it, then money can't buy as much wealth, so you haven't done anything to end poverty.

While on paper the worlds wealthiest people may have enough *money* to end poverty four times over, they really can't do anything about the scarcity of goods. That study should look at whether they have enough wealth to end poverty, rather than enough money. They'll probably end up with a much different conclusion. And even then, their figures won't account for things like a large yacht being given away. This is the kind of thing that, while worth a lot to somebody who is wealthy, isn't really worth anything to say a guy who has a regular 9 to 5 job that can't be done while at sea, and if its a big enough yacht, he probably can't afford to hire a crew either.

Yes, it's cool, just make vast stereotypes about "all the new people coming into bitcoin" based on a few forum posts you've seen from people hoping to get rich quick.

Just make assumptions about everyone's motives, assume that no one cares about the fundamentals or the revolutionary aspects of bitcoin or its potential to take on the crony banksters -

Good luck with that brah ;-) I'm going to go to another thread now.