What? Low interest rates make it harder to compete? Really? Last time i checked having a lower cost of capital is good thing, and any failing business is at the very least spending money and employing someone.

Data is data, but the conclusions he draws are far from self evident. From my 15 minutes of listening to the guy, he seems to think he knows everyone and their motivations better than they do, which is simply ridiculous.

How do these 'accidents' happen!    Do people just not realize they are dealing with money? If I ran a bank, would I accidentally forget and leave the vault open and the doors unlocked?

I personally doubt there will be an economic collapse.

If we can't trust the website giving commands into the hot wallet, [edited:]how can we trust that same website to collect and offer the hot wallet valid and intended commands to pull?

@World - Thanks for the link. That's the great overview. I'm thinking more technical like an Information Security Policy type document or even PCI-type standards.

A simple example - I'm a merchant. I've rolled my own bitcoin payment gateway. Because I'm paranoid, I send most of my btc offline. Now a customer wants to return an item. He sends me the item and I need to send btc.

Assume for the above example you want this to be automated - because your store is really really big (like bigger than your bedroom) you want the return / credit process to be automated.

1. What percentage of "hot" btc reserve should be kept? It seems to me that with all the statistical types around these parts a formulaic answer could be created.

2. How does the merchant application (the store) access the hot wallet to credit the btc back to the consumer? Is the wallet on the same machine? where is the passphrase stored?

BONUS QUESTION

Should the merchant encrypt the customers btc address as private information?

Your moral argument is a pure contrivance. That's the problem. You seem to think that there actually exists the concept of ownership outside the boundaries of a society which acknowledges it. Whatever society you are in might acknowledge that concept within the context of its own paradigm. Within the context of, say, the United States, or perhaps Germany, or some other nation, ownership has one meaning, and it might have another in your fairy tale world.

This violence you speak of, which weakens your case considerably because it demonstrates a lack of critical analysis, is no different than the violence you would speak of if in your fairy tale land, if you choose not to abide by the various contracts that exist, as per the method of living within your fairy tale world.

I personally would not want to live in your fairy tale world precisely because of all the potential coercive violence. My suggestion to you is to use the other half of your brain and realize how silly and weak your use of the term coercive violence is with regard to your rants. It's not original at all, and doesn't indicate any critical thinking on your part.

There had been a few cases

After all, remember that the Internet was first a playground for child pornographers and sex predators before the government got their act together and cracked down on these practices.

No, CueCat is strictly a 1D scanner

How do you make sure you don't have a trojan that's reading the scanned keystrokes?

Maybe because he is a scumbag?  He has a half dozen lawsuits, criminal charges, and foreclosures.  I mean this isn't coming out of left field.  

He probably isn't acting now, this is Tredon Shavers.  The friendly Pirate was the act but that only lasted while you had something he wanted.  Now he has your coins there is no need for that anymore. Twisting the knife is just payback for all the times he had to be nice and patient to the marks.  Hint: you aren't an investor, you aren't a creditor, you are the mark.  It would be like asking why the guy who mugged you wasn't more cordial.