I guess my response is that if Bitcoin is better for the individual, then that is what individuals will select.
Better for what? Its certainly not better for any individual or any business needing credit, and that is mostly everyone. Commerce without affordable credit just isnt going to work. Again, there is a reason we invented credit money countless centuries ago - when we already had gold. What makes you think today we could do without ? Most individuals do not *need* credit. In the medium to long term, it is a net drain on their income and their ability to improve their future. It bonds them to jobs they don't want and saddles them with depreciating assets. They do it because running the presses all day forces interest rates low, discouraging saving and incentivizing non-advantageous spending. I would suggest that it's also not always wise for businesses either. I'm not up for going into the full arguments and it's not always the case but there are some other perverse incentives at play there also. |
|
|
|
(this is the exchange rate we got when we made our deposit - not the inter-bank lending rate)
I think you need to advertise this rate. It can change quite dramatically quite quickly. USD/GBP fell from 2.0 to 1.8 virtually overnight in 2008 then another 20c to end-of-year and has fallen about 10c recently. You could potentially end up with some unhappy customers. |
|
|
|
|
That's interesting. So how much does that mean the GBP->X ends up costing? One of the reasons I was using your service was to try to avoid the costs of fiat currency conversion (currencyfair is pretty reasonable if I wanted to go that route).
|
|
|
|
There is always a conflict between interests of the individual and society.
Not always. Not even most of the time, I'd submit. Edit: rest of message deleted as I realized I had misinterpreted some of what you're saying. I guess my response is that if Bitcoin is better for the individual, then that is what individuals will select. If you're suggesting (and I don't think you are) that the government should outlaw Bitcoin "for the good of society", that's a different issue. |
|
|
|
|
You can't really convert dollar/BTC to GBP/BTC that way.
I believe you are buying BTC for GBP. If you were buying BTC for USD, there would be a GBP to USD conversion and the associated costs with that. Even if there weren't costs, the multiplications don't all fall out neatly. This is how arbitrage works.
There may be another factor I'm missing too. I don't think these guys are trying to rip us off though. I'd be interested to hear their explanation if I haven't covered it though.
Edit: Though I see where you're coming from about the £52.10 now. Sorry, end of a long day. This is one reason I suggested they should show what you might expect to get when you trade.
|
|
|
|
Still no luck. This is what I am seeing: $ ./poclbm.exe stratum+tcp://13qnEgPTxJW6mm88dLpnHXZyryN5EXBciq_64:pass@stratum.hhtt.1209k.com:3333 --device=0 --platform=0 --verbose -v -w 128 -r 60
26/03/2013 01:51:24, started OpenCL miner on platform 0, device 0 (Cypress)
26/03/2013 01:51:24, Setting server (13qnEgPTxJW6mm88dLpnHXZyryN5EXBciq_64 @ stratum.hhtt.1209k.com:3333)
stratum.hhtt.1209k.com:3333 26/03/2013 01:51:24, checking for stratum...
stratum.hhtt.1209k.com:3333 26/03/2013 01:51:27, no response to getwork, using as stratum
stratum.hhtt.1209k.com:3333 26/03/2013 01:51:37, Failed to subscribe
stratum.hhtt.1209k.com:3333 26/03/2013 01:51:39, IO errors - 1, tolerance 2
Any ideas? Edit: Odd. This was on 3333. 80 and 443 appear to be working. Consider this informational I guess. |
|
|
|
Go right ahead. If you honestly beleive that money is a tool intended to "work for society" then there is nothing that I can do to change your mind. Nor would I care to try, you're as free to be wrong as the next guy. And yes, I want a tool that works for me, for I am the only person that I can trust to best handle my tools. The prisoner's delima doesn't apply to free market trades in the absense of third party coersion, so in a free society wherein the vast majority of economic interactions occur in the absence of such coersion, it's literally impossible for the collection of individual interactions (presumedly favorable to both sides of the trade) to be a net negative for society.
Think, young man, think. Think for yourself, not just how your professor expects you to react.
I feel that there are also several assumptions at work here. That government is synonymous with society (implicit in the idea that a currency needs to be controlled to be beneficial to society) and that the government would act in the interest of that society in its actions (likewise). I see, as I suspect Moonshadow does, that money is a tool that is used by individuals and that the actions of those individuals sums to the interactions of society. The extraction of "the needs of society" as something to be sheparded is simply collectivism and us used as a pretext so subsume the needs and rights of the individual. |
|
|
|
But what you do achieve is making credit (ie money) available for businesses and generally thats a good thing for the economy.
It might be, it might not. If it's a poor investment, you have people and resources being soaked up doing something when they might otherwise be more gainfully employed. It might have been better for people to hold on to their money until a better opportunity comes along. But if you do that in the current environment, you're losing value. So spend, spend spend and hope you don't get caught holding the bag (Hint: you will because when it all goes South, the government will take even more of your money to bail the big boys out). I can't believe anyone can honestly look around at what we're in now and think the status quo is a good idea. |
|
|
|
|
and yet next time things look a little shaky, they'll all be running in as fast as their little legs can carry them to cast a "yes" vote.
What might impress me more would be if those who voted for the subsidy in the first place resigned in shame.
|
|
|
|
A government can create the legal basis to tax anything they like; including the gold in your safety deposit box or bitcoins.
Yes, the point is kinda that they shouldn't.
So I guess your point is that investing in land is a poor way to evade taxes, legally or illegally?
Sure, bitcoin does look better in that regard.
Still I wouldnt worry an investment in land would lose 50% or 90% of its value in a short term. Something I cant say of bitcoin or many other investments.
Worse. Land could gain a lot of value in the short term. If you didn't want to sell it, you may suddenly have no choice as land is taxed on assessed value. |
|
|
|
If you look at it as an investment today, yeah maybe; though much, much higher risk and potential reward. Land is probably about as stable as an investment as you can get while bitcoin is on the other end of the scale.
Land is actually a pretty shitty investment as, like with so much else, the government feel free to help itself to your wealth if you own any (unless you are rich enough to be able to indulge in tax dodges). That land prices have risen reasonably in recent history is just one of those things and the link between this and the paragraph above may not be entirely unrelated to the government created housing bubble. |
|
|
|
So...it would be swell if somebody could prove me wrong though...eh? eh? Any takers?  I have to think that it can't be that hard. Like you say though, it's about having the information. I wish I didn't already have too many projects that aren't getting attention because I'd like to get more into the Bitcoin infrastructure. |
|
|
|
Could be. I haven't been able to bring myself to advertise my ammo for silver. Who needs silver when you're holding BTC  |
|
|
|
|
I don't really understand why the risk of bankruptcy is an issue. I know HHTT has burned through a few of his own BTC. I would have through the algo to go with would be when a block gets mined, the BTC get split between the contributors according to whatever method one chooses.
I can see that there might be some reason to offer some join incentive to start paying for mining relatively quickly but once things are going along, why should there be problems?
|
|
|
|
It's total and absolute folly to have a monetary system where consumption is artificially incentivized. That is wrong on many levels.
1984 and Brave New World. Two of the most prophetic books ever written. |
|
|
|
Now onto a more serious note, I think bitcoin will have a thing or two to teach some of the economists, Keynesians etc.
With Keynesians it seems like an "old dog, new trick" type of scenario... More like "Yeah... What you have to say is interesting but I think we'll just stick with the policy that lets us keep helping ourselves to your wealth thankyouverymuch" |
|
|
|
We're on page 2 now. It's all good. If you wanted to do that, you could go with one of those horizontal fans. The type that use the drum-shaped fans,  |
|
|
|
|
Money, when it comes to it, is just accounting. What it needs to function correctly, amongst other things, is to be predictable to a reasonable degree and to be a secure store of value. Bitcoin has problems with the former but the government has blown the latter out of the water. The deflationary spiral is an argument used by those who wish to help themselves to the fruit of your labor.
|
|
|
|
I think that Homeland security just just triggered a lot of fear in the general public and then you get the "I better get mine" mentality.
There's a lot of speculators getting into the supply lines at the moment. I'm seeing people asking $80 on armslist for what I paid 23 for a week ago. It's a bubble that's going to burst bad. |
|
|
|
|
Show Posts
