|
Terrorism plays off of the psychological fears of people and empowers governments. It's their perfect ally. If people weren't stupid then it wouldn't work, but the vast majority are. A herd of sheep are controlled by the bark of a single dog. At any moment the sheep could turn on and trample the dog. And yet they do not because fear brings out the utmost stupidity in any species. (Okay maybe sheep were already dumb to begin with). The truth is.... a terrorist can't take your freedoms. But your government sure can.
|
|
|
|
|
Bitcoin could be killed with the terrorist card. The terrorist card essentially allows a government to do anything it wants. If the government simply said "you are a terrorist or you are aiding and abetting them if you use bitcoin" then not many people would use it. There was just some news article about how the president can kill any american citizen with a drone attack if they think you are a terrorist or something. We are in a neverending war because governments used terrorism. It plays off the psychological fears of people and empowers governments. It's their perfect ally.
|
|
|
|
|
could you start with a huge map in the background? a map of something bitcoin related. Maybe bitcoin worldwide usage? just to see how global it is. Maybe some projections to it's growth as well?
|
|
|
|
|
I was thinking of a will. When someone dies.. they usually leave assets behind in their will. But imagine if your wealth was stored as bitcoins? You could provide some kind of service where you act as the executor of a will. When you die you can have different amounts of bitcoins sent to different individuals/addresses . To really do this though I suppose you would need to keep those individuals private keys stored in some offline database so you could access them. This is just one small example of the possibilities. There are plenty of possibilities..........
|
|
|
|
|
well... I work the same but I'm wasting my money less. Budgeting down a bit. No longer buying 4 dollar bottles of kombucha 6 at a time. I'm kind of upset at the price rise though because I can't buy as many bitcoins now.
|
|
|
|
A bank doesn't "have something" . It isn't lending out something that has already been worked for. It's creating new money. So in this situation... interest isn't the price of money because this money the bank is lending is created from nothing. When you say that bitcoin can't be printed and it has to follow true capitalist principles... I think you acknowledge that fact. So when someone says "interest is the price of money" ... that can only really be true in a monetary system that is 100% backed by something. Such as copper or gold or whatever. But when you start fractional reserve lending and creating new money.... interest isn't the cost of money because it's being created from nothing (or nearly nothing).
This is mixing several issues; the pros and cons of different monetary systems, and where money comes from in fractional reserve lending. Whatever the case (except during extreme hyperinflation) money always limited, so has always has "scarcity" which means it can be used as a store of value to exchange products (the reason it exists). Just considering an example of a bank with money to lend and just 2 customers. It will only lend to cover costs, risks and make a profit. You want to borrow $1000 and so do I. The bank determines it needs to lend at a minimum of 4% before it makes a profit. Because I will will pay 10% and you only 8% then this (small) market influences the bank's decision, assuming the same duration of the loan and same credit-worthiness of the prospective borrowers, then the bank will want to lend to me as you will pay less for their money. Central bank manipulation screws this market because the CB may want the official rate at 2% (in order that the government can borrow cheaply). There are many problems arising, but one is that it severely distorts market perception. But how does it help anything or anyone(besides maybe the bank?) if that person willing to pay 10% gets the loan instead of the 8% person? If you think about it...... that would be a bad thing because if they have the same credit rating.... then the person paying the 10% loan is more likely to foreclose. Well it may not be a bad thing. there is a 2 % difference so it would depend on the increased risk of foreclosure to the bank. But that's the bank's problem. What i'm trying to understand though is why people think that lower interest rates increase inflation. If you look at what actually increases the money supply it isn't interest rates. It's Open market operations, the federal discount rate, and reserve ratios. |
|
|
|
|
The word freedom is thrown around in many ways. But when it is joined with the word bitcoin, there couldn't be a more harmonious marriage.
|
|
|
|
|
what if that conjectured 80 million profit is a gross underestimation? What if it was in the billions? couldn't amazon still work out tax issues with bitcoins and pay taxes normally?
|
|
|
|
|
damn ballsy. I think I would go with 20% .
|
|
|
|
|
0-100% . Btw do you think any single one person has actually invested this much?
|
|
|
|
Its not hard to see that bitcoin is growing... but the thing you have to remember is that bitcoin is and always will be 90% speculation, so even if the rise in value has some legit growth backing it up, the fact remains that 90% of the rise is due to speculation, this is of course unsustainable and will come crashing down at one point. I dont think any one person is doing a pump and dump, the market as a hole is doing this without really realizing it.
Is 90% of the price of gold speculation? If so then I don't see a problem |
|
|
|
Suppose we divide everyone in the society into two corporate A and corporate B, (or similar to an island with only 2 people), each year banks loan out 1 Billion to A and 1 Billion to B, and they do production and consumption and trade with each other. They need to return the loan plus interest. Since the money supply is only 2 Billion, where is that extra interest come from?
....
As a result, the original observation might be more close to reality: Everyone's saving is depleted slowly by the banks, and saving becomes more and more difficult
The interest rate is the price of money which should be set by the market. Bitcoin can change all that. It can't be printed so bank lending in a bitcoin economy will have to follow true capitalist principles. I'm really interested in these two things you said. I know a lot of people of a certain economic background agree that interest is the price of money and artificially low interest rates are bad. But I have some questions. First...... let's consider . Say you own something. You lend it to someone else... and because of that there has to be a cost since something now is better than later. So interest is that cost. but......... A bank doesn't "have something" . It isn't lending out something that has already been worked for. It's creating new money. So in this situation... interest isn't the price of money because this money the bank is lending is created from nothing. When you say that bitcoin can't be printed and it has to follow true capitalist principles... I think you acknowledge that fact. So when someone says "interest is the price of money" ... that can only really be true in a monetary system that is 100% backed by something. Such as copper or gold or whatever. But when you start fractional reserve lending and creating new money.... interest isn't the cost of money because it's being created from nothing (or nearly nothing). |
|
|
|
You have a difficult job to explain Bitcoin in 20 minutes. Your best strategy is not to try and "educate" them on Bitcoin, but to intrigue them enough that a half dozen or so go home and research more on their own (maybe provide some links to take home).
I like cypherdoc's suggestions.
I would avoid spening too much time on it being fraud-proof, as the risk of a merchant losing money due to fraud and chargebacks is actually very small, even for businesses that take credit cards. One merchant came on these boards asking how and why to start taking bitcoins and the replies coming in kept harping on the "no chargebacks" issue. The merchant said that in 3 or 4 years of business (a B&M with online presence), he had had 1 chargeback that cost him $30. Also, bitpay charges 2%. Credit cards are around 4%.
The fact is, for someone who is not a visionary or idealogue, there is very little reason to care about Bitcoin today.
Don't mention cheating on taxes as a selling point, as a lot of people still think that dodging taxes is morally reprehensible. Mention the anonymity and no threat of confiscation and those in the audience interested in tax issues will figure it out on their own.
The one thing that almost everyone agrees on is that the banking system and Washington are corrupt. You may want to approach your talk in the following format:
"These are the problems and consequences of our current monetary system. (use a bunch of graphs that cypherdoc listed) And this is how a group of people are trying to solve it." So you show problem, solution (bitcoin). Don't try to "sell" them on using Bitcoin, just explain why OTHER people are using it, and how it will continue to be successful as long as the rate of adoption continues to increase.
wise +1 |
|
|
|
|
i'm just throwing these out there... but if I was going to discuss bitcoins with anyone (business or not) I'd probably focus on the mostly legal stuff first
#1 Bitcoin is naturally more attractive to merchants since they won't have to worry about fraud. It might also incur less fees than a credit card would since merchants pay several percent to credit card companies. That right there is pretty awesome.
#2 businesses can accept bitcoins without even "touching them" .
#3 I have to go to work I will finish this later
|
|
|
|
How much money....... would amazon make if it secretly bought up loads of bitcoins.......... then suddenly announced it accepted bitcoins for everything on all of their sites?
Why would they buy bitcoins before they started accepting them? That's actually my main point... the tax issue was just a side question. If bitcoins went "mainstream" what single better way could it than if amazon did so? And They would make millions of dollars if they bought some before they did it. I would hope. ignoring tax issues.... wouldn't bitcoin still be a good thing for amazon as far as credit card fees are concerned? I know they have their own credit card but wouldn't they get a better deal using bitcoin than if they accepted credit cards (other than their own? ) |
|
|
|
Great points. I'd just like to add a couple things though. - technically i'm not against having more partners than 1. So with say.. 6 partners I would have 100/7 stake.
- I chose the name and bought the domain
- I purchase the equipment to build servers and build them(haven't yet of course)
- I pay for a business line from verizon fios directly to my home
- which means I would do all hardware setup/maintenance for the servers
- I handle advertising
- When I say i'm an idea guy I didn't mean just general ideas. I mean very descriptive.. to the minute details. since I am an amateur programmer I can
envision what is and isn't possible and I can describe it in programmatic ways. I will probably do it myself it's just that I don't have much time and my field of work
is not computer related at all so that doesn't help. - I'm also not interested in just anyone. I'm only interested if this person is smarter than me. If they are an awesome programmer and can really accomplish the task.
- One other thing I also do all the design. Logos... website design. I already have drawings. I also pick the technologies used. Although I haven't completely decided yet either. I'm still deciding
between node.js or vert.x basically. mongodb as the database is chosen though.
|
|
|
|
|
I'm not sure about that......... but I don't believe that mining doesn't have an impact on the price of bitcions. If it's suddenly "twice as hard" to acquire bitcoins through mining... then that has to do something it would seem....... or what about all of that money and capital being invested in new equipment currently? Won't that capital and investment somehow translate into the actual value of bitcoin itself eventually when it catches up? If you bought 100k in mining equipment recently.. it wouldn't effect the bitcoin price rice away. but with that kind of capital invested into bitcoin... does it have an effect on the price? I'm not sure. I'm just full of questions all the time now thinking about bitcoin.
|
|
|
|
|
How much money....... would amazon make if it secretly bought up loads of bitcoins.......... then suddenly announced it accepted bitcoins for everything on all of their sites?
Let's say they managed to buy a million bitcoins.
It seems that amazon might have a problem.......... with states wanting to enforce taxing. I wonder if bitcoin would help solve amazon's problem by making any such laws unenforceable?
discuss.
|
|
|
|
|
Just a weird Idea I had. I don't think this would be the case because you can't enforce any kind of repayment. So people would simply take your money and run.
|
|
|
|
The price of Bitcoin isn't some random number. It has to do with physical goods tied to the use of the Bitcoin.
Not exclusively. It has properties similar to gold as well. How many physical goods do you guy and sell directly with gold? I think it's a common misconception that the success-case for bitcoin is tied exclusively to its utility as a means of transaction. That's only half the equation. If bitcoin, like gold, is only really ever transacted as a major settlement (as opposed to day-to-day transactional) currency, it can still be hugely successful. That said, I think bitcoin's near-ideal transactional properties will cause a real consumer economy to develop around it eventually, but the point is that that doesn't *have* to happen for bitcoin to have considerable value. I think i'm in agreement with this. Bitcoin is in sort of a unique situation in that it's a store of value and a form of money and transaction at the same time. Both could impact the value. Did I understand you right? |
|
|
|
|
Show Posts
