|
Yeah, people tell me they don't watch TV. Yet we have satellite, multiple streaming services, analog and digital cable, fibre optic, and still good old broadcast stations. There are TVs in your SUVs. There are TVs in your RVs and yachts. There are hundreds of stations and thousands of direct to video movies every year. BTW, I hear they have the NFL and the baseball package special going on now. But hey, don't let me interrupt your not-watching-tv time. Just be glad you didn't have to suffer the snowy black and white sets while you watch your ever growing big screen HDTVs.
|
|
|
|
Most roads are actually built by private contractors... Paid for with public funds.
I suppose if no one stole the money to pay these people, no one would ever pay for roads to be built, right?
If a market need exists, someone will be willing to provide it. If no one is willing to pay for it, no market need exists.
That's a lot of ifs. Evidentiary facts would be better. Those aren't "ifs," they're if-then statements. As for evidence to back up those statements, you need only look at the black market. People want drugs. They are willing to pay for them. (There is a market need for drugs.) Other people are willing to provide these drugs, even at significant personal risk. Drug trafficking is an excellent example of a secure, industrious, and well-adjusted population. Thank you for such fine examples. I am getting such a good education here. |
|
|
|
Most roads are actually built by private contractors... Paid for with public funds.
I suppose if no one stole the money to pay these people, no one would ever pay for roads to be built, right?
If a market need exists, someone will be willing to provide it. If no one is willing to pay for it, no market need exists.
That's a lot of ifs. Evidentiary facts would be better. |
|
|
|
|
Where do your free-market fairies live that don't have publicly financed infrastructure? Because if they were so efficient and profitable, sure they must have streets paved with gold, food shelves bursting with the sweetest fruits and meats, and flying cars!
|
|
|
|
I don't even believe in the free-market fairy. If you've ever conducted a transaction or made a trade in which you and the other person consented to the exchange, the free market fairy was hovering over your head. Oh I don't know. I had to travel on publicly funded roads to get to the store. I had to use publicly funded GPS to find my way there. Most clerks at the stores are probably home-schooled ;-) but some of them were products of a public school. I could go on, but suffice to say that much of the modern industrial and economic infrastructure is not the product of a free-market. Like the publicly funded oil pipelines - oops, no, not those. Or the publicly funded electrical grid... oh, not that, either. Maybe the publicly provided internet you're using... oops, not that, either. Perhaps your public school education explains why you needed GPS to find the grocery store.... You win. You are so smart. |
|
|
|
I don't even believe in the free-market fairy. If you've ever conducted a transaction or made a trade in which you and the other person consented to the exchange, the free market fairy was hovering over your head. Oh I don't know. I had to travel on publicly funded roads to get to the store. I had to use publicly funded GPS to find my way there. Most clerks at the stores are probably home-schooled ;-) but some of them were products of a public school. I could go on, but suffice to say that much of the modern industrial and economic infrastructure is not the product of a free-market. |
|
|
|
|
I am not the one Keiser is interviewing. The thread title is an American film cultural reference circa. 1980. But yeah, his arguments were compelling and I would like to learn more.
|
|
|
|
Security is a service, like any other, and we do not need a monopoly provider of this service. Infrastructure, even today, is mostly privately built, contracted by the governments. The "end of government" would only mean the "end of monopoly provision of security."
Begging the question. Security means that one's basic needs of food, shelter, and protection from harm are met. It is not a service. These needs can be self-provided. I can cook a meal for myself. That does not mean that providing me with a meal is not a service. And when I speak of the "service" of security, I am specifically referring to provision of the need of protection from harm. Though Food and Shelter are certainly services that can be provided, they lie outside the scope of most private defense agencies. (And outside the scope of Government as laid out in the Constitution, as well.) Definition of service: The action of helping or doing work for someone. Again, you do not need anyone else to protect you from harm. You're right, you don't. You don't need anyone to mow your lawn for you, or to cook your meals for you, or to make your clothes for you, either. Providing these things for someone, however, is a service. (Or, arguably, a product, but we needn't split hairs.) It just makes life easier when we cooperate and specialize our skills for efficiency. Again, you're correct. Specialization and division of labor make doing these things more efficient. You could grow your own food, and make your own clothes, and be 100% self-sufficient. You'd have little time for anything else, though. Which is where service providers, such as farmers, clothiers, and the like come in. The question is, do the service providers for Security operate under the free-market principles which have so greatly increased prosperity in other areas of life, or do they continue to operate regional monopolies and use force to extract their payment? I saw what you did there. Going back to my original argument. They can also be offered as a service at a price by an entity like a brutal dictator or even a democratically elected government, but that is a seperate issue.
I might suggest that anyone against using a democratically elected government to provide these services can choose from the other two options by moving to Somalia.
In fact, I never profered the notion that free-market principles provide any services for the greater good of a populace or individual. In fact, I don't even believe in the free-market fairy. Thankfully, you don't need to believe in it. Reality doesn't need belief. Nope, but it does need evidence for which there is none. |
|
|
|
Security is a service, like any other, and we do not need a monopoly provider of this service. Infrastructure, even today, is mostly privately built, contracted by the governments. The "end of government" would only mean the "end of monopoly provision of security."
Begging the question. Security means that one's basic needs of food, shelter, and protection from harm are met. It is not a service. These needs can be self-provided. I can cook a meal for myself. That does not mean that providing me with a meal is not a service. And when I speak of the "service" of security, I am specifically referring to provision of the need of protection from harm. Though Food and Shelter are certainly services that can be provided, they lie outside the scope of most private defense agencies. (And outside the scope of Government as laid out in the Constitution, as well.) Definition of service: The action of helping or doing work for someone. Again, you do not need anyone else to protect you from harm. You're right, you don't. You don't need anyone to mow your lawn for you, or to cook your meals for you, or to make your clothes for you, either. Providing these things for someone, however, is a service. (Or, arguably, a product, but we needn't split hairs.) It just makes life easier when we cooperate and specialize our skills for efficiency. Again, you're correct. Specialization and division of labor make doing these things more efficient. You could grow your own food, and make your own clothes, and be 100% self-sufficient. You'd have little time for anything else, though. Which is where service providers, such as farmers, clothiers, and the like come in. The question is, do the service providers for Security operate under the free-market principles which have so greatly increased prosperity in other areas of life, or do they continue to operate regional monopolies and use force to extract their payment? I saw what you did there. Going back to my original argument. They can also be offered as a service at a price by an entity like a brutal dictator or even a democratically elected government, but that is a seperate issue.
I might suggest that anyone against using a democratically elected government to provide these services can choose from the other two options by moving to Somalia.
In fact, I never profered the notion that free-market principles provide any services for the greater good of a populace or individual. In fact, I don't even believe in the free-market fairy. |
|
|
|
Or simply have installed Norton Antivirus on his Celeron laptop with 5400RPM drive.
Perish the thought! |
|
|
|
|
I don't know who decided to set up a large sell wall. Apparently there are no individuals that feel it is worth taking down. It has the effect of forcing miners to sell below the wall. The same person may be buying up some of those coins to add to the wall. They may be selling off slowly to recoup their buying spree, but if someone else doesn't jump in, then eventually the wall will crash down and drop the price. I don't mean to be bearish, but there doesn't seem to be much market exuberance over these extraordinary technological developments.
|
|
|
|
Security is a service, like any other, and we do not need a monopoly provider of this service. Infrastructure, even today, is mostly privately built, contracted by the governments. The "end of government" would only mean the "end of monopoly provision of security."
Begging the question. Security means that one's basic needs of food, shelter, and protection from harm are met. It is not a service. These needs can be self-provided. I can cook a meal for myself. That does not mean that providing me with a meal is not a service. And when I speak of the "service" of security, I am specifically referring to provision of the need of protection from harm. Though Food and Shelter are certainly services that can be provided, they lie outside the scope of most private defense agencies. (And outside the scope of Government as laid out in the Constitution, as well.) Definition of service: The action of helping or doing work for someone. Again, you do not need anyone else to protect you from harm. You just have to have good survival skills. It just makes life easier when we cooperate and specialize our skills for efficiency. How this is organized is irrelevant. All I am saying is that a collective organization is more efficient at providing a broad range of the necessities of life for the the most people. They theoretically maximize resources for the collective good of everyone. |
|
|
|
|
Is there a status update on this project?
|
|
|
|
I'm in bitcoin for a simple reason
I think it was cbeast here, who said: "It's a really, really good idea."
I like those.
That does sound like something I might say. Some folks observe that I have an astute perception for the obvious. |
|
|
|
She's got a point. It might be possible for totalitarian regimes to abuse Bitcoin.
Take a DNS sample at birth and link it to a BTC address. If you get caught paying with anything else you are in trouble. If you transfer money to an unlisted address you are in trouble.
That can be done with any type of money. If the Bitcoin revolution does not free us from this, then we have bigger problems than money. The Bitcoin network will accept addresses outside of those linked to anything. Besides, taking away the ability for a government to print money and use an addressing system like this will make them more dependent on making their taxpayers happy to volunteer to support the general welfare of the nation. I actually thought that maybe Jones would get Bitcoin. Even Keiser could not save him from the trickle down stupidity. |
|
|
|
I can envision that blockchain usage may actually go down as the number of bitcoin users grows in leaps and bounds. It is somewhat frightening to send irreversible transactions to anonymous counterparties. The majority will prefer chargebacks and layers of insurance. Once these services have been developed to cater to the needs of the new entrants, the current power users also drift towards them. We will soon see bitcoin banking that is completely detached from blockchain addresses (in the user interface).
Or the opposite can happen. 2-of-2 transactions can offer counterparty-backed escrow for worry free anonymous transactions. Even better is to use third-party escrow schemes. Even bots are capable of offering insurance for multisignature transactions. Bitcoin banks of the future will not make money simply off of holding money. They will have to work for it like everyone else. They will have to make calculated risks on loans of those willing to lose as well as gain. Banks of the future will be large miners using their fee income to make loans using the time-tested art and craft of the loan officer's ability to make safe investments. |
|
|
|
|
You sound like the perfect person for a project I was thinking about...
|
|
|
|
This. Too many scaling problems right now...BTC can barely handle satoshi dice, much less an entire nations economy.
Bitcoin can scale up to the world (at least 2000 tx/s) if it's doing financial transactions. Bitcoin cannot scale up if it needs to do informational transactions (SatoshiDice) or micropayments on top. Only 2000 tx/s? That's not much. Maybe it is banks that will not be able to scale with Bitcoin. As long as SD is paying their fees, then what is the problem? |
|
|
|
Installed Open Bitcoin Wallet onto another pc.
Loaded my original wallet.dat backup created 8-2011.
After 7hr's or so, the blockchain was loaded fully, and all is well.
I actually made an extra 4btc from doing this, assuming they were sent to this wallet.dat file after I had been using a more recent one.
Yey.
I need to find my old wallet backups from other installations and create watch only wallets for just this reason. |
|
|
|
|
Show Posts
