think about it this way

if you promised me to give me 95 of [whatever 2014's major CPU is] in exchange for 100 of [whatever today's major CPU is] I'd take it

Of course we are strictly postulating something which is pretty unlikely for reasons which I have stated above (where you think money itself is GUARANTEED to buy more and more and more with no investment).

Not sure why we would ever want demurrage - which is basically a tax on liquid monetary assets - unless we want even further expansion of the state?  All that does, anyway, is make the keeping of cash a money losing proposition.  One could still invest the money in savings instruments.  What's the point of it all besides expanding government power, anyway?

I'd urge against it and would never avoid a currency which participated in such a tax system if I had a choice.

Having Gold or BTC's and not spending them is one way to "save" ... it means consumables that you could have consumed are either consumed by others or don't need to be created, freeing other resources up for capital investments.  That's what your "savings" is in reality if you are talking strictly speaking about hoarding money itself.  A [usually] more profitable mechanism for savings would be to loan your money to someone else who will build a lasting asset with it, that creates future consumables (capital investment).  This can happen 1:1 or via a banking system.  Either way you look at it (cash hoarding or investing) it is not a bad thing to save instead of spend. The best is if people are 100% free to spend and save their own monetary instruments as they see fit, thereby deciding what gets consumed now or later.  I am 100% sure this is morally better as well as produces better outcomes than where some central planners try to favour spending over savings artificially. 

Looks like there was a predecessor forum satoshi referred to in his posts

Thank you very much.. I wonder if its because I searched for 'Satoshi' instead of 'satoshi'

I read on one of these pages that newbies should spend time reading Satoshi's old posts.  However, searching the forums for Satoshi does not easily yield these.  Have these been collected somewhere or can someone kindly let me know how I can best find these?  Thanks.

Actually the above reminds me to point out ... because it will be so easy to compete in the world of crypto currencies, to 'win' - BTC must have the greatest acceptance in terms of actual goods and services that can be procured by it, the best transfer / payment acceptance software, and security as good as others with similar acceptance and transfer/payment ubiquity (although being "the perfectly secure" currency  is not required at all). 

A well put question.  If this really happened (dubious scenario though which we'll return to), I would agree with your proposed implications. This would not be a problem. In fact, we *normally* experience deflation in certain markets all the time ... for example cost per unit of bandwidth, computing power, television quality, etc, where the pace of technological advancement and associated productivity improvements exceeds the insane growth rates in base money supplies.  I would think, yes, that one would get mortgages involving the repayment of less BTC's than the quoted price over a period of time. 

That all said ... I do not think this is a natural state of affairs over the long term.  I believe if BTC's were such a store of value that they rose in value vs. pretty much everything for a pretty much guaranteed-to-be-long-time that other currencies would rise up to compete with BTC's in order to make exchange easier.  This, unless I am vastly mistaken, would seem to be one of the conclusions of Gresham's law. 

I hope none of the above is read as a critique of BTC's ... there's alot to be said for a currency that is fixed or near fixed in supply!  But:

1. competition and freedom are good things.  People will have numerous currencies and that's great.  I am hopeful there will be multiple crypto currencies in addition to the base metals.
2. While base BTC count can be fixed credit instruments can actually increase the notional amount of money....  This is the same thing that can happen when bullion banks issue notes on a fractional reserve basis.  There is nothing wrong with this as long as there is no government insurance to encourage moral hazard on the creditor side.  This means that money supply is not notionally fixed persay when the underlying count of BTC's are fixed... because people will trade Letters of Credit (i.e. promises to deliver BTC's at later dates in whatever form and format) and will have real social credit between them... for this reason its hard to imagine a world where currency, globally, everywhere, all the time is actually fixed... 

What I hope for is an end to legal tender laws and a free market for currencies and banking.  Unlikely to happen, I know, but us libertarians must all have dreams.

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The same goes for borrowers. The cost of borrowing money is very high, even at 0% interest.

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If this ever becomes true, then interest rates in the free market will become negative. 

I am not entirely sure where the idea that one would not grow rice in such an environment comes from.  You are saying there is an implied increase in the value of cash money (whatever currency presumably not easily replicated - bitcoin, gold etc) and this increase is so big and fast one can live off of it while doing nothing.  That assumes some interesting priors that do not seem actually possible in the real world ... for example, if such were true, the price of items that take actual "work" to make such as rice would go up so big and so fast as to make it worth doing again ... yes? 

What I am trying to say and probably not doing so eloquently or succinctly (maybe some other newbs can help) is that it is pretty circular to say "assume a world where the value of money rises so fast its better to do nothing at all with one's life because you can get rich doing nothing" and then go on to say "in such a world people would do nothing."  I do not think the former is possible.  the scenario where deflation in a given currency is so strong for so long that everyone just quits their jobs is just not realistic.

Another mechanism which breaks the above: if a currency system experienced such dramatic appreciation on an ongoing basis and for so long as to convince people it would never end it will be supplemented with other means of exchange and would basically be a store of value and not a means of exchange  AT ALL..  So what?  Other currencies will be used... 

This is completely wrong. the % return is presumably unaffected by this in Real terms. One can be more sure that projects undertaken are likely the right ones because this 'deflationary' currency is not subject to interest rate manipulations of central planners, which likely result in mal-investment due to incorrect signals (i.e. interest rates that do not reflect individual preferences and are therefore unsustainable).

Thinking about the housing bubble as an example. In the absence of a credit-based flexible money supply would it have played out the way it had?  i think the answer is obviously 'no' because 'yes you are right that interest rates probably would have been higher.' 

That's different than saying that there would be less investment!!  Probably capital would have been invested in more useful activities than building McMansions....

The answer is simple. By definition a deflationary (what you mean by this is a currency that is relatively fixed in supply vs economic and technological progress, driving down prices and up the value of the currency) makes it difficult to fund government deficits because there is no option to create money out of thin air instead of taxation.

All, Newbie here.  I am a believer in BTC's.  however, for these to really take off more and more people need to accept BTC's for actual goods and services and I mean NOT only as a flexible proxy-price for USD's.  What are the best ways for me to find BTC-users who might want to lease from me in BTC's?