In the coolest and most awesome forum in the known universe, Red and White Kop (RAWK), there's a thread called Some quality/important posts you may have missed. Started by a mod five years ago (yes, royhendo's mustache is real), the thread has proven to be an exceptionally useful one for many members. With literally thousands of new posts being made daily, it is easy to miss out on some truly great ones. The thread collates worthy posts so as many people as possible may get to read them.

I think a similar thread would be useful here. There are gems that disappear under an avalanche of pointless one-liners. Perhaps a mod can start and manage such a thread in a couple of sections (the Alt section could really use one). Owing to the commercial nature of this forum, posters obviously can't be allowed to post in the thread - only mods and admins should be authorized to do so. The objective should always be quality, as opposed to quantity.

1. You didn't, did you? Noted.
2. One can have values that encompass aspects of both libertarianism and socialism if one does not create restrictive labels.
3. If we didn't have labels, OP doesn't need to transition between labels at all.

I only have one label. I'm a Red (not the hammer and sickle kind of Red - the cool kind).

ps: Rereading my earlier comment, I may have given the impression that the last couple of paragraphs was directed at you. It wasn't. I'm sorry if you were offended.

Roadtrain, the Fed "payment system" you spoke of is actually Fedwire, which is similar in nature to CHIPS, SWIFT and ACH.
These are clearing houses that facilitate transfer of funds between endpoints with reciprocal arrangements.

To make it easier for you, think of fund transfers before the internet, when telex, telegraphic, fax or even phone instructions between reciprocal parties are conducted, including those by Fedwire - hence the use of routing codes in the form CHIPS UID, Fedwire ABA, IBANs and SWIFT BIC to transfer funds to specific designees.
Settlements, netting and novation via direct transfers, basket of currencies or instruments are thereafter conducted to balance book shortfalls of endpoint agents.
Actual settlements DO take place on regular basis, and funds are not held in trust.

For your reading pleasure:
• Page 100-106, THE DEPARTMENT OF THE TREASURY BLUEPRINT FOR A MODERNIZED FINANCIAL REGULATORY STRUCTURE 
• Transparency and Compliance for U.S. Banking Organizations Conducting Cross-Border Funds Transfers 

Now, going back to my original statement of currency controls to restrict the outflow of dollars, there are precedents - similar frameworks were enacted in Chile (1991-98) and Malaysia (1998 - now).

• INTERNATIONAL BORROWING, CAPITAL CONTROLS AND THE EXCHANGE RATE: LESSONS FROM CHILE
• Did the Malaysian Capital Controls Work?

Your words.

Just to be clear,

(i) Are you saying that when, say, a Bank of America branch in New York is instructed to transfer US$1 million to the Industrial & Commercial Bank of China in Guangdong, the Federal Reserve merely change the ownership of said funds in its "payment system"? Do they automatically create third-party accounts for ICBC as well in their payment system?

(ii) What do you think it means when countries say they have $xxx million US dollar reserves?
Does that mean the Feds has internally allocated US$xxx million in its "payment system"?

(iii) When a Japanese company pays for a product supplied by an Egyptian company in US$, do the affected parties (or their banks) contact the Feds to facilitate said payment?

(iv) Does the Feds directly participate as middlemen in foreign exchange trades between brokerages?

I am really, really trying to understand what you are trying to argue with me here.

Edit: Also, are you still maintaining that foreign companies have to open U.S bank accounts to trade with American companies?

Mildly curious.

Has the Stellar exploit been patched yet?
Were there other gateways/exchanges, apart from Justcoin, affected?
Has Stellar Foundation agreed to compensate Justcoin?

You're laboring under a flawed assumption, RoadTrain.
Actually, dollars do leave the country, either electronically or physically - every minute of every single day.
Foreign exporters are not required to hold bank accounts in U.S to conduct trade.
Flip to page 14 (Table 2), and you can see the entire foreign direct investment (not trade) outflow of dollars from the U.S. for the period between 2007-2012.

Poor response, Majesticoin.
I think you owe Superhitech an apology, and an assurance that you won't use his code/design.

To truly understand the Homestead Act - its rationale, purpose and objective - one must look back to the very birth of the United States. And no, I don’t mean the English and Dutch Protestant refugees, the Mayflower, the cannibals of Jamestown, the Boston Tea Party or taxation without representation debate.

I am referring to the basic construct and essence behind the conception of the United States.

The United States is the direct product of the Age of Enlightenment. The idea that all men are equal; the flaw behind the dogma of the divine and absolute right of Kings and governments to rule over the people and Dominionism; the belief that the domination of merchant princes and land barons are detrimental to the rights and happiness of the common people; the debasement of humans under the tyranny of feudalism and serfhood; – all these were ideas that traveled across Europe and influenced the intelligentsia. Locke, Hobbes, Descartes and many others shaped a whole new generation of scholars and politicians, and the sociopolitical effects of the Age of Enlightenment inevitably shook Europe. 

The first large-scaled effect of the Age of Enlightenment manifested with the French Revolution. The March on Versailles and Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen powered the Third Estate, leading to the toppling of the monarchy.

These ideas resonated with mental giants such as Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Paine (I’ll get back to these two later), and before long, these ideas traversed across the Atlantic to the small community of scholars in the 13 colonies. The incubation of these ideas, flavored by local political upheavals and championed by geniuses in the mold of Thomas Jefferson, gave birth to America.

Make no mistake about it – the intelligentsia, guided by a new sense of morality, was the catalyst behind the American Revolution. Franklin campaigned tirelessly across both sides of the Atlantic educating the thought and political leaders; Paine begged and pleaded for money from half a dozen European countries; dozens of others giants of early American history crisscrossed the colonies giving moral and intellectual purpose to the Revolution. The American Revolution was designed to be a moral one, to give everyone the opportunity to achieve happiness.

But the key ingredient in the revolution is Thomas Jefferson. The third American president is not a natural politician, and were it not for the machinations of Alexander Hamilton, Jefferson would have retreated to a life of scholarly pursuits after independence. But I digress. The point is, Thomas Jefferson provided the Revolution with its moral spine. At just 33-years of age, he was entrusted with drafting the Declaration of Independence. A year later, he wrote The Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom, which would go on to serve as the basis of the Establishment and Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment. His protégé, James Madison, working under his guidance, would go on to draft the Constitution and Bill of Rights.

Sure, many others played a role in the eventual success of the Revolution, but Jefferson was the thought leader of the entire movement. A polyglot (he reportedly could speak 11 languages) and a polymath (lawyer, architect, violinist, philosopher, translator, etc.), Jefferson was hugely respected, massively influential. So much so, 51-year- old Vermont Representative Matthew Lyon once spat tobacco juice at 37-year-old Connecticut Representative Roger Griswold for insulting Jefferson, nearly starting a Congressional free-for-all.

If you spend time reading about Jefferson, you will realize how so many of his ideas remain relevant to this day. He was a man far, far ahead of his time. He believed in the equality of men (he had a black mistress and five children, which Hamilton made public courtesy of poison-letters written by James Callender); he believed in Women's Suffrage (trivia: John Adams’ wife, Abigail, was one of his best friends – platonic relationships were highly irregular then); he insisted on the separation of Church and state; he detested the power of banks, giant companies and religious bodies; he loathed feudalism and the unchecked power of monarchy (ironic that Hamilton accused him of being a royalist, a mole for the English crown); most of all, he believed in the inalienable right of the common man to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

His two protégés, James Madison and James Monroe, would go on to shape the very young United States with the Jeffersonian Ideals following consecutive two-term administrations.



His legacies persist to this day, even if numerous aspects of have been devolved and distorted. But every American president since have been guided by the legacies and principles he laid down.

Abraham Lincoln, by all accounts, was a man of average intelligence, with only a couple of years’ worth of formal education behind him. But like Jefferson, he was a man guided by principles and convictions, and was so open, he was utterly incapable of subterfuge. His nickname, Honest Abe, was a truly deserved one. In the 1860 presidential election, no one thought he could win. Heck, no one even thought he could secure the party’s nomination.

After all, he parroted Jefferson’s beliefs of equality, abolishment of slavery and emancipation and homesteading. But against all odds, the man who had never experienced a life of luxury won the Republican nomination, defeating favorites William Seward and Salmon Chase.

In the run-up to the election, Democratic candidate Sen. Stephen Douglas practically campaigned for Lincoln by focusing his campaign almost exclusively on Lincoln’s radical ideas. And yet, Lincoln won, massively at that, securing 180 out of 303 electoral seats – despite the threat of secession by seven states. His ideals were clearly shared by people of the land (at least a majority of them).

I tell you about these two men so you may accept their words at face value and their reasoning for the Homestead Act, instead of accepting revisionist accounts.

Now, let’s be clear about one thing. Although Jefferson established the Democratic-Republican Party, which is the progenitor of today’s Democratic Party and Republican Party, Jefferson was not a man of one ideology. He displayed strong leanings, in equal measures, to libertarianism, socialism and republicanism. If you do not have the time to spare to read books about this colossus of a man, you can find literally dozens of his quotes which would reflect this.

Here are two contrasting Jefferson quotes that display his John Locke-inspired libertarian and socialist values, specifically in regards to homesteading:

Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia, Query 17, 157—61, 1784 (Volume 5, Page 79-80)
“But our rulers can have authority over such natural rights only as we have submitted to them. The rights of conscience we never submitted, we could not submit. We are answerable for them to our God. The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury  for my neighbour to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.”

“As few as possible should be without a little portion of land. The earth is given as common stock for man to labor and live on. The small landholders are the most precious part of the state […] Those who labor in the earth are the chosen people of God, if He ever had a chosen people, whose breast He has made His peculiar deposit for substantial and genuine virtue."

"These revenues will be levied entirely on the rich .... The Rich alone use imported article, and on these alone the whole taxes of the General Government are levied. The poor man ... pays not a farthing of tax to the General Government, but on his salt; and should we go into that manufacture also, as is probable, he will pay nothing."

Now, compare the above quotes with two of Lincoln’s (in similar order)

“I think that I have said it in your hearing that I believe each individual is naturally entitled to do as he pleases with himself and the fruit of his labor, so far as it in no wise interferes with any other man’s rights—that each community, as a State, has a right to do exactly as it pleases with all the concerns within that State that interfere with the rights of no other State, and that the general government, upon principle, has no right to interfere with anything other than that general class of things that does concern the whole. I have said that at all times.”
Abraham Lincoln, “Speech at Chicago, Illinois,” July 10, 1858

Abraham Lincoln, February 12, 1861
“[…] the wild lands of the country should be distributed so that every man should have the means and opportunity of benefitting his condition.”


Over two million claims were made following Lincoln’s Homestead and Morril Act. At least 780,000 were approved after the required five-year residency period (understandably, exact numbers are murky since the internet was over a century away). Regardless, the Act is directly responsible for the settlement of at least ten percent of American land across 49 states. Can we just stop for a second and think of how many families and their descendants who have benefitted directly from the Act?

As I’ve originally stated last week, the Homestead Act is definitively, the single most successful economic policy in the history of the United States – and the most socialist one as well.

In the name of Satoshi of the Blockchain and of the Holy SHA. Amen?



Pfft. Real men drink scotch. Neat. From a flagon. Served by freckled red-headed wenches.

Je vous crois sur parole, cher Dave.

Bounty on his 'head'. I think that's pretty clear cut. Not bounty leading to his arrest, not bounty on information,etc. On his head.

As for the police report, the issue is, will Nxt's self-appointed representative travel to China to make said report? The article implied they, not Bter, are the reporting party, and they will also be pursuing legal action - again, from China?

As for tracking the repurchasing of stolen Nxts, isn't that just an empty boast?
Unless of course Nxt is planning to spend millions of dollars hiring law firms around the globe to compel ISPs and/or domain registrars to divulge the identities anonymous exchange owners and thereafter, compel them to hand over their internal logs followed by another round of court appearances to force ISPs to disclose subscriber details. Multiply that by say, oh, a thousand.

This, of course, assumes that a court in Thailand or Latvia or Bolivia will even accept affidavits from an exchange owner in China about the theft of an experimental cryptocurrency they probably never even heard of before.

Come on, man!

I thought this was funny as well, and as I was uploading the image below to Imgur, I read the linked article. Then it stopped being funny.



Amidst talk of making police reports (in China?) and pursuing legal actions (in China?) including on those who repurchased the stolen Nxt (worldwide?), Dom P dropped this bombshell.


Never mind that Cointelegraph deemed the comment worthy of publication, how can anyone honestly take anything from the article seriously after that?

The people quoted in the article are representing Nxt, and hubris and unrealistic claims aside, they are actually suggesting complicity in a criminal act - murder, specifically.

Indeed.
There is a critical shortage of new alt coins at the moment, especially scrypt ones (I mean, people spent good money on all those damn ASICs, ffs).

Edit: Just realized that alt coins have barely touched on medical terms. We have busloads of animal, plant and color coins, but no one has named their coins after diseases and disorders.
I see amazing growth opportunities here guys.

I'm sorry, but I'm not quite sure I get what you're saying.
Billions of USD exit the United States daily.
Enforcing capital control is the only method to stem the outflow.

Or, the Federal government can impose some form of currency controls, preventing instrument holders from removing their dollars out of the country.
Or, the Federal government can just impose a payment moratorium on Chinese-held instruments under some made-up pretext.

Either way, it remains in China's best interest to remain on friendly economic terms with the United States.

Well done.
You guys may not believe this, but the change of heart will in fact make the mods and admin here appear stronger.

Edit: Time to unsticky this, no/

I greatly admire your tenacity, conviction and sense of altruism.
For the record though, buddy, I don't think you are a socialist.
Unlike most of us in this thread, you're not a political creature.
You're a humanist (or humanitarian - I always get those two mixed up).


Genjix, very nice (not said in a Borat accent, I swear!). Cool post deserves a cool song.


Hey, don't sell yourself short, man.
Need I remind you of the inimitable Nigel Farage?
I remember watching in shocked fascination as he brazenly likened van Rompuy to a damp rag - among a great many other insults directed at the latter.
Oh, and thanks for making the cogent reasoning re Homestead.

Very gracious of you, forevernoob. It's hard to find people with enough grace to offer apologies to strangers online. Many pats on the back, you deserve!

Let me assure you though, I am not apolitical. I am very, very political. I am just an equal opportunity asshole, as posters on the Democratic Underground, Daily Paul and Hannity forum will testify. In fact, I am gigantic troll on the Vanguard Forum (those racist supremacists deserve it though).

The thing is, if I accept labels, I have to defend and/or adhere to the parameters of said labels.

If I label myself as a liberal/socialist, I cannot scream in anger at Obama for capitulating to the demands of Congress in keeping Guantanamo open.
If I label myself as a libertarian, I cannot applaud Obama's iron will in preventing the United States from entering into a third war in Syria, despite the insistence of his entire cabinet (including SecState Clinton, SecDefense Panetta, CIA Director Gen. Petraues and CJCS Gen. Dempsey) and the neoncons in Congress (watch this Senate Armed Services Committee Hearing: )
If I label myself as a conservative, I cannot give credit to Obama for presiding over the lowest growth in Federal gov size since the Eisenhower administration.
If I label myself as a Green, I cannot criticize Obama for signing the FAA Reauthorization Bill.

I will be too busy hedging and hemming and hawing my opinions to toe my self-imposed label. By remaining free of such labels, I can stand on my own principles and beliefs. I am certain, you are also not comfortable with the entire political parameters of libertarianism.

I know of libertarians who get ulcers trying to reconcile the idea of child labor into their belief system, just because it fits with the current paleolibertarian zeitgeist.
I also know of fundamentalist conservatives whose conscience is torn asunder as they attempt to deny gays their right to love (interesting read: the love affair of David and Jonathan in the book of Samuel).
I know of liberals who froth in the mouth when it was revealed that Obama ordered the assasination of American citizen Anwar Al-Awlaki (remember the DoJ whitepaper?).

If we are free from the shackles of labels, we are able to develop our own value system instead of relying on party platforms and flavor-of-the-month politicians. I feel insulted whenever someone tells me what I should think and believe in. Don't you feel the same?

Sometimes, I get the impression people are naming their favorite musical genres when speaking about their political beliefs.
Ooh, I'm a fan of techno and house music and I'm a crypto right wing anarchist.
Wow, you're so ordinary. I'm a fan of bluegrass and early Texas blues, and I'm a Jedi-liberal-constitutionalist.

You're the third user I know who's had their account closed by C-Cex in lieu of doing a refund.
After the Darkcoin shenanigans (and now SSD), I thought people would stop using this exchange, but apparently many still do.
You have to wonder if an exchange can be so cavalier with its reputation, how long are the owners planning to stick around - especially with the level of debt it's carrying?

Does it really matter?
Shouldn't we, as individuals and civilizations as a whole, aspire to be the best that we can be?
The Vedic texts, the mighty Greek philosophers, the Magna Carta, the Leviathan, The Two Treatises of Government, The Age of Enlightenment - all these are the byproducts of humanity's attempt for material and spiritual advancement.

Our values and morality have grown throughout the ages since the dawn of history. Imagine, less than a century ago women still can't vote in the United States. Less than two centuries ago, the law accepts that some humans are inferior to others. Less than four centuries ago, the Church gave their blessing for the genocide of non-caucasoids. Less than six centuries ago, the modern concept of courtship and love still hadn't emerged.

The right thing is never the easiest to do. If it was, most of us here won't be gambling, smoking and womanizing our lives away.