Cannot a polluter rightfully ignore the complaints of the dysenteric and asthmatic on the premise that they consented to drink and breath?
Not if they're affecting the complainers properties. (well, I mean they don't have the right to, not that they "can't") If a polluter is polluting your piece of a river, your lake, the water from your well etc, than you have the right to stop him. If there is no "public" ownership, it becomes a case of damages, not negative externalities. If someone dumps a pile of manure in my yard, that's not an externality, it's damaging my property and I will sue him or at least make him clean it up. |
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OK, First I am assuming we are talking in the U.S. If so, yes I have proof. For one, one of my friends owns a station. But I know that won't suffice so I will endeavor to source it. Futures are Futures, not the spot market. The laws in the U.S. is that the price in stations is based of the current supply in the tank at the price for which they paid for it plus mark up. For example: if you bought gas for your station at $3, held onto it until $4 and then sold the gas, you would get arrested and fined. But that would make no sense for a Gas Station to do (depending on traffic). <-- That is covered by anti-gouging laws. Google them. So lets source it for you: Earlier this week, Kehler's wholesale price jumped by 4 cents a gallon. The price is set by Sunoco Inc., from whom he leases his gas station and is contractually obligated to buy.
Shipments arrive overnight, whenever a remote sensor tells Sunoco that Kehler's tanks are low. The wholesale increase means Kehler will have to raise his pump prices soon -- if he wants a shot at breaking even on gas sales.http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2008-05-23-1070321808_x.htmProposed law would allow gas stations to set fuel priceshttp://www.virginiagasprices.com/News_Page.aspx?msg_pg=2&id=35700&master=1&category=1357&topic=437086&page_no=1&ign=1Just like independent owners, he records nearby competitors' prices, the manager said. But rather than adjusting his, he reports his survey results to his company - to what Beachler called the chain's "pricing office." From there, he's told what prices to post for the day, or at least until he's told to survey again.
"Believe me, that guy in his (pricing office) cubicle knows what's going on" with the competition around his company's stations, Beachler said.
Chain station pricing offices and independents also check on the wholesale prices that major gas suppliers set late each day for gas to be bought the next morning from terminals where the suppliers send it from refineries, usually by pipeline.http://www.pjstar.com/business/x61381715/Who-sets-the-gas-prices-Thats-not-an-easy-answerAnd each State has Gasoline Pricing Laws. New Jersey will even prosecute you if you raise the price twice in a day. You can google the laws yourself. As far as the Franchise contracts for the stations, I won't disclose my friends. But he is told by a Pricing Office what the price will be for the day. If however, you are connected to the fuel via a pipeline to the station, the price will and can actually change hourly if the state allows it. Do you not understand the difference between wholesale and retail prices? Is that where the source of confusion is coming from? Yes, the owners do take advantage of using a bigger companies surveying power to assess competitors prices. Is that the same as "we can't raise prices because of the futures market?" So even if the man owning the franchise is not making his decision (it comes from above), what makes you think that decision from above is not influenced hugely by oil futures prices? Sure, some states will only let you raise it once a day. So it may be possible to get a good deal 1 day to the next. |
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As that aspect of Bitcoin severely limits it's "world currency status" potential.
Huh. One-to-three day transfer times doesn't seem to have hurt the dollar much: http://www.depositaccounts.com/blog/inside-look-at-ach-transfer-speeds-at.html"Instant" payments with world currencies is an illusion created by your bank of financial institution based on how much they trust the person or institution sending the money. There is nothing stopping bitcoin financial institutions from using the same trick, and I think as the bitcoin economy grows and companies start to trust each other instant transfer times will happen. This is an interesting perspective. BTC crushes similar systems with actual transactions. 10 minutes or an hour or whatever it takes, is far, far superior to the systems in place for actual transfers of money. But of course it's often compared to the methods of instant transactions, which of course are not really instant, but can be instantly verified by the agencies that handle this. This does leave a huge growth opportunity for the BTC economy to grow by having institutions being able to provide these services, and then square up at the end of the day/week/month. But another question is, why does it have to be that way? Was it based on technical limitations of having too many blocks if there was 1 per minute or 1 per second? Is it possible to change the difficulty and rewards by making blocks more often if that was needed? I'm sure there's a good reason. It just is unfortunate that the model seems to have been based upon the outdated banking model rather than the more modern reality. But even with a modern banking system, I can hand a cashier $10, and he gives me change and my food. I can't hand him 10BTC and get change back for in person transactions. BTC seems to serve a more niche need rather than being a full-service currency. Which isn't a bad thing, but maybe it would have been nicer if it could handle such things. |
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OK, I know you have no idea !!! Agreed.
Where do these gas stations get their gas from, BP Stations from BP, Shell from Shell, etc... Most of these have franchise contracts, these contracts, control pricing. Sorry just the way it is.
Now, lets assume you want to go it alone and be none franchisee, and buy gas. Where do you get it from? Well you don't have to many options, BP, Shell, Chevron, Citgo, ExxonMobile, etc... You will not get the Franchise rate, you will pay a premium. But then you can set the Profit Margin yourself, but to what end. Your price by design will be higher than everyone else.
Here is an excerpt about Divorcement Law:
Independent retailers often have difficulty surviving in industries marked by a high degree of vertical integration. In the petroleum industry, for example, many gas stations are owned and operated by oil refineries. These companies are able to control the wholesale price of gasoline sold to locally owned franchise stations. They also set the going rate at the pump through company-operated stations. By narrowing the difference between the wholesale and retail prices, oil refiners can squeeze independent and franchise gas stations out of the market.
But don't believe me, go ask a locally owned operator. He will tell you.
However, if you happen to have a oil well in your back yard, own a refinery, and a gas station. Your set, charge what you want.
Having a franchise contract doesn't mean you can't set your own prices. Obviously they won't sell gas to franchises super cheap. But that doesn't mean that they can't charge more because of whatever reason they want. It's just competition keeps them from setting them too high. Do you have any evidence of this? Or is it your own made up conspiracy theory? Because I have seen gas prices skyrocket overnight due to the oil futures market going up huge. I've seen it drop huge overnight as well. You are telling me that every independent gas station owner and franchisee, who already has huge tanks, couldn't just stop selling gas for a week to make this extra profit? They already have 10-20,000 gallon tanks. If the price goes up by 10 cents, they could make an extra $1-2000 by just holding the gas. So why don't they do this? You are the only genius, and people who already have the infrastructure in place are all idiots? It's funny, most people have the opposite complaint you do. "Gas went up 20 cents last night, but they still have the same gas in the tank they paid for last night! That's gouging! They bought it cheap, the should sell it cheap!" This is the exact thing you are claiming they cannot do. The reason they do this, of course, is because 1) they can, and 2) sometimes the price goes down, and they need to sell current inventory. They are much more likely to sell gas at the price they expect to refill their tanks at than whatever they paid for the last tank. Go to any gold coin dealer, same thing. If you sell them a coin for $1400, and then gold drops to $1350 next week, your coin is not going to still be for sale for $1425. It will be for sale at $1375 (or whatever premium exists). Same thing if you sell it to them when its $1400/oz, and it goes up to $1500/oz. That coin won't be sold for $1500 anymore. By your logic, you could buy lots of gold coins when the price rises, since by the time the gold dealer restocks his inventory, the price will go up! But he changes his prices often according to the futures market. |
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Simple research that anyone can do. Chart the Spot Oil, and the avg. Gas price and overlay.
Basically it is called Time to Market(TTM). You buy something at a $1 for a future delivery. So when you get the delivery you must charge at least $1.
Unlike electricity, the Oil that we buy has to be shipped to us, refined, and shipped to gas stations. That takes about 30-40 days depending on schedules and delays.
Now you can't take advantage of that fact on a stock exchange because of instantaneous communications (electricity, ie internet) but you can take of advantage of it through the physical product delivery.
And with the shelf life of Non-Ethonal gas at 180 days, and ethanol gas at 90 days. You can even wait for a peak or set margin before you sell.
Currently I am looking into it. I found a 400 Gallon approved container cheep. at 3.63 X 400 = 1448 now a little birdy I know tells me his next purchase is 8 cents more. But a bigger birdy tells me that gas will hit at least a 4.00 average within 60 days. That would be $1600 dollars or a $152 profit.
But I don't want to make money, I just want to Hedge the gas by buy low, and mitigating the costs while it rises by using my own fuel I purchase when it was lower. Not to mention, I get a built in emergency supply.
You are assuming that gas stations price their gas based on what they paid for it, rather than what the expect to pay for their next shipment. They have the same information as you. In the U.S. the contracts that Gas Station owners get from the suppliers, limit the mark up. Basically they are told what they will make off of each gallon sold. And it is small, as the contract has a NDA attached. Most owners bitch about the paltry amount they get from the supplier. Unless your a big station, you don't make much off of gas. Better hope they come into your store. If you noticed, they sometime use the trick of not putting paper in the pump, so you must walk into the store to get it. And over and above the contract, the government has strict rules on gas pricing. Although this came about from price gouging after disasters. Personally I don't think the needed the laws, as the owners that tried it after Katrina became pariahs afterwards. They still get called names. So why haven't any gas station owners decided to just stop selling gas (hoard it until they can charge more), and make all this money? Are they all stupid? I have no idea where you are getting this information that suppliers force them to sell it under a certain price. Competition generally does that. If what you are saying is actually true, how come I can drive past one station the next day, yet the prices rises $.15/gallon sometimes (even when a new tanker hasn't arrived)? Prices fluctuate daily on gas stations, and it certainly isn't because they are getting new shipments. So your theory is that there are suppliers that control the retail price (but it still changes daily), and the government limits the price increase (but it changes daily)? Do you have any facts or is this all speculation? |
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Simple research that anyone can do. Chart the Spot Oil, and the avg. Gas price and overlay.
Basically it is called Time to Market(TTM). You buy something at a $1 for a future delivery. So when you get the delivery you must charge at least $1.
Unlike electricity, the Oil that we buy has to be shipped to us, refined, and shipped to gas stations. That takes about 30-40 days depending on schedules and delays.
Now you can't take advantage of that fact on a stock exchange because of instantaneous communications (electricity, ie internet) but you can take of advantage of it through the physical product delivery.
And with the shelf life of Non-Ethonal gas at 180 days, and ethanol gas at 90 days. You can even wait for a peak or set margin before you sell.
Currently I am looking into it. I found a 400 Gallon approved container cheep. at 3.63 X 400 = 1448 now a little birdy I know tells me his next purchase is 8 cents more. But a bigger birdy tells me that gas will hit at least a 4.00 average within 60 days. That would be $1600 dollars or a $152 profit.
But I don't want to make money, I just want to Hedge the gas by buy low, and mitigating the costs while it rises by using my own fuel I purchase when it was lower. Not to mention, I get a built in emergency supply.
You are assuming that gas stations price their gas based on what they paid for it, rather than what the expect to pay for their next shipment. They have the same information as you. |
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That's awful. I always thought that companies would just split their stock if they needed more units. They can also buy back stock too. Although buy backs don't really have any impact on the value of a company, since they have less cash even though there is less stock, so less value is there. |
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Not sure if this is legal by a Regulation Point of view, but by a Win/Win trade between friends there is nothing wrong with it.
Here it is:
The price of Oil on the market doesn't reach the pump for 30 to 40 days. So here is what you do. Buy a storage tank or tanks for Gasoline, their are appropriate approved containers for sale.
What makes you think this is true? |
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Looking at ugly houses
Please justify this. Who is forcing you to look at ugly houses? Do you have a right to be surrounded by rainbows as far as the eye can see? If someone builds an ugly house next to mine, I had a nice view of a mountain before, and now I don't. No one said anything about having a right to a good view. It is a cost imposed on me, nonetheless. If someone farts near me, that's a negative externality too. Centralized fiat currencies. Please justify this. How are you forced to use fiat currency? When the government forces you to pay him in it. Still, not sure it's a negative externality. |
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First of all, like many of you, I am a Libertarian. I believe that force is the sole and ultimate societal ill, and that identification and elimination of force is the key to creating a more just and productive world. Along those lines, I think it's consistent to say that the economic manifestation of force is the concept of "negative externality". A negative externality is simply a cost or harm that is imposed on others without their consent. Furthermore, and just as a technicality, since I do not think it is consistent to attribute any inherent value to goodwill (goodwill is just as much force as ill-will) I ignore positive externalities and do not believe that they are capable of offsetting the cost of negative externalities also without explicit consent. I'd like to perform a little exercise in this thread. I'd like to crowdsource a list of all of the negative externalities that exist in the world, in order of global impact. For a refresher or for those new to the subject, some discussion of externalities: http://www.auburn.edu/~johnspm/gloss/externalityhttp://economics.fundamentalfinance.com/negative-externality.phpSo, please, help add to the list. You can 1) add an item to the list, 2) separate an existing item into two or more items, or 3) re-order items in the list. Please provide justification for your addition or change. I will start off with some simple examples: - air pollution
- water pollution
Looking at ugly houses Traffic |
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The only way BitCoin early adopters make a lot of money is if the uncertainty over BitCoin's viability has caused it to be initially undervalued. If the concept is proven, any similar system will not launch with that same uncertainty--either prices will start at a high level from the beginning if there is any good reason to believe the new system will succeed, or there will be enough competitors failing left and right to make "early adoption" a very risky proposition indeed. Either way, there's no such thing as a money machine--no one is likely to make anything on a bitcoin competitor unless it has something fundamentally new to differentiate it.
There are two forms of doubt with BTC. 1) Will the idea of BitCoin be able to suceced. 2) Will the implementation of BitCoin be able to succeed. These are two separate problems. It may possibly be true that 1 is able to succeed, but 2 is not due to some unforeseen flaw. And even if 2 is a success, a new competing currency would be still have the same risk as #2. The new currency would also have early adopters generally find out about it before everyone else. Information does not move instantly. If 50 clones came out, would all 50 have the same high price? I doubt it. The early adopters of each one would be people who are on the inside or know the creators, and the public would be the last two know. A clone/improvement will succeed if it is somehow better to use than BTC. There are enough pain points with BTC now that might make it inferior to a future currency. All the advantages of BTC being scarce dry up once you realize that although BTC's are scarce, if you include all possible bitcoin implementations, they are as scarce as stars in the galaxy. |
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Anonymity is hugely valuable if governments ever try to crush BTC, though. Can someone point me to the wiki page which lists Bitcoin myths? I'm sure there was one somewhere. I need to add a section about Bitcoin being 'anonymous'. It might not be anonymous by it's self but it can be used anonymously. It's a hell of a lot easier to hide than a credit card. I agree. But there are very specific things you need to do in order to protect your anonymity while using Bitcoin. I think it's dangerous to tell newbies Bitcoin is 'an anonymous currency' and have them trot off to silk road with their first paycheck. I should have been more clear. The decentralization is far far far more important for the survival of the network from attack. |
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With how long it takes to mine, the cost of electricity... Bitcoins should far exceed real currency in value. I can easily work a minimum wage job for less hours and make 50$.. But to make 50 bitcoins?! Jesus Christ...
I didn't know you were actually calculating the hashes manually. Most people just hook up a computer and let it run. |
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I've done some thinking about this topic.
My first post may have been a bit premature, but it's at least good to identify pain points for adoption.
I'm mainly looking to brainstorm ideas of where BTC is currently (or at least with little work) superior to using local currency or credit cards.
BTC thrives best when the economy is circular. I spend my bitcoins with A, he spends it with B, etc... If fewer conversions to outside currency are needed, the more valuable it is to use since you aren't eating transaction costs. BTC is vastly superior to other currency in transaction fees internally. Anonymity is also a huge advantage, although I'm not sure there's huge value to most users in that area. Anonymity is hugely valuable if governments ever try to crush BTC, though. So it's essential but not a huge draw to people, besides those with something to hide. I understand this case, but it's not something I want to promote, just to avoid association with anyone involved with this being a subversive or scaring people from using it.
The other part where it might be advantageous is areas where people already are paying huge fees. Western Union costs quite a lot to send money from one country to another and people eat the cost. Local currency trading for tourists tends to be pretty bad as well.
Does anyone have any stories about how using BTC was beneficial to them, and not just a "I want to promote people using it" case? I'd be interested in finding out areas where it has a decent competitive advantage.
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That's fractional reserve banking.
Not necessarily. There is such a thing as time deposits. Barely: Basic Certificate Rates
Minimum Balance Requirement: $500
3-5 Month APY: .25% Dividend Rate: .25%
6-11 Month APY: .25% Dividend Rate: .25%
12 Month APY: .50% Dividend Rate: .50%
Basic Certificate Rates
Minimum Balance Requirement: $1,500
15 Month APY: .75% Dividend Rate: .75%
24 Month APY: .75% Dividend Rate: .75%
48 Month APY: 1.50% Dividend Rate: 1.49%
60 Month APY: 1.75% Dividend Rate: 1.74%
Not exactly out pacing inflation. What does outpacing inflation have to do with anything? Yes, it's hard to outpace inflation when other people get to print money for free. I'm talking about BTC though. |
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#3 is certainly doable on a small scale.
But think from the merchant's perspective, why would they ever require this?
1) Cheaper for them than processing credit card transactions
2) Government mandate (lol @ governments mandating bitcoins)
3) Merchant is advocate for BitCoin, values this more than getting business
4) Merchant requires anonymity or other BitCoin advantage (selling something illegal?)
Am I missing anything else why a merchant would *only* take BitCoins? Or even charge "less" for using them?
Sorry I'm late to the conversation, but you're also missing customer mandate. Eg. If the people walking up to your bar only have bitcoins, then you'd better start accepting bitcoins. And once bitcoins are the norm and paying in anything else is a rare and random event, of course you'd charge more when they pay the old-fashioned way. Edit: Sorry, you said *only* bitcoins. My mistake. I think you are describing a situation that occurs after they are mainstream (customers prefer to pay in BTC). However, there's a good argument that there might be a niche where people would love to pay BTC, even at a slight premium right now. People who have/are earning in BTC probably would prefer to spend BTC. Assuming they are not hoarding them, and want to spend them. There's a huge number of bitcoins in existence right now, and targeting that audience makes great sense as a business opportunity. Those who have them are most likely miners or speculators. I'd guess the speculators are holding them hoping they go up in value more. The miners are doing this for profit, though. They want to make money and a lot are wanting to spend their earnings. So targeting them is great. It won't really do much to expand the usage of BTC, but it can't hurt. The more things you can buy in BTC, the more likely people will want to use them, especially if transaction costs are cheaper. |
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That's fractional reserve banking.
Not necessarily. There is such a thing as time deposits. |
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Fees on coinpal are 5.5 to 10% depending on order size. Pretty huge.
That's about the same fee as for the purchase of foreign currency (in tourist quantities), although the exchangers present that as a "spread" rather than as a "fee". So I don't think it's too high at all. What's missing from current Bitcoin exchanges is convenience, not cheapness. And that works for tourists because they *have* to convert their currency to the local stuff. Unless I need to hide my money, why would I want to use BTC if I have to pay 10% more? I agree the 5 to 10% is a huge drawback. It's also really early for the tech / currency. I'm surprised what options you do have for it being so early. If you want it to be a little cheaper I'd suggest you open an account with ingdirect you can do it completely online and they have free incoming and outgoing transfers. Then link that account to your regular bank (or use it). Use that to (freely) transfer to MT-Gox and convert to BTC which is obviously free to transfer to your wallet. Might be your best option at this point. Also I do a lot of international business and what he said is right, I lose a few percent everytime. I'm going to try to use btc to reduce this. Thanks for the idea. Still gotta eat a $15 fee from mtgox, but if I ever needed large transfers, bank wire might be great. If I can get some bitcoins going, it seems like making a business out of payment processing might be a good way to go. |
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Fees on coinpal are 5.5 to 10% depending on order size. Pretty huge.
That's about the same fee as for the purchase of foreign currency (in tourist quantities), although the exchangers present that as a "spread" rather than as a "fee". So I don't think it's too high at all. What's missing from current Bitcoin exchanges is convenience, not cheapness. And that works for tourists because they *have* to convert their currency to the local stuff. Unless I need to hide my money, why would I want to use BTC if I have to pay 10% more? |
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If you come from a gambling background, then you know how hard it is to move money from/to certain jurisdictions and the issues with processors used to try to shield such activities. Bitcoin solves that. As far as speed of transactions, ~10 minutes per confirm is not a big deal at all. The efficiencies of Bitcoin as a platform compared to servicing in local currencies can be seen on a variety of sites/applications. For gambling, BTCSportsBet.com is a full service sportsbook that only accepts Bitcoin.  I'm well aware of the difficulties. I'm also aware of how quickly a lot of the betting dried up after depositing became incredibly difficult. BitCoin as a currency in this arena is awesome. However, having casual users being able to easily and cheaply purchase BitCoins in order to deposit is very important for such businesses. Yesterday I saw it take 2+ hours for my transactions to complete. I don't know how long it actually took since I went to bed before it actually worked. I did one transaction with a transaction fee, and 1 without. Both took over 2 hours. If I was making a gambling website, I would want people to deposit on impulse and waiting 2 hours would not be acceptable. But I see the potential and hopefully that issue gets better. I love the idea of BitCoin as this currency. But until I can buy groceries with BTC, pay my mortgage with BTC, etc..., I'm going to need USD for a lot. And for people who make their money in USD, they are going to need easy ways to get that into BTC. Perhaps in the future BTC becomes something more where I won't need to convert, but to get there, transfers need to become more efficient. I'm new to the game, so I am still learning what's being done, how things work, etc... So figuring out what challenges remain and trying to brainstorm on any solutions and perhaps even implementing some could help grow the BTC economy. |
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