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1  Economy / Economics / Re: Anarcho-capitalism, Monopolies, Private dictatorships on: May 22, 2011, 06:11:31 PM
Capitalism is an animal, a useful animal to be sure, and the human is its rider. We do not allow these corporate creatures of private power to consume everything in site and shit everywhere, we put the leash on the animal of capitalism and we say you cannot go there, you cannot eat that.

Talking about capitalism like it's an animal is rationalisation. Capitalism is the true will of the people, much more so than the lobby lead government. The people vote every day with their wallets at Walmart. You disagree with the will of the majority but you don't want to see that reality, so you dress it up in colourful metaphors and cover your ears.

In your own metaphor, the animal is going exactly where people want it to. You're a poacher killing it against the will of the many.

I like choice but I also like democracy. Hence I don't use violence to force the cost of choice unto others, but instead I pay for it by buying innovative and better rather than cheaper at every turn.

Wait a minute, I'm confused. You seem to be on my side then. Huh

Maybe it's because I know that lobbies are funded by rich corporations and the like that bend the government to their will, and I am against this, whereas you think (unless I'm wrong) that the problem is that there is a government in the first place. Am I right?
2  Economy / Economics / Re: Anarcho-capitalism, Monopolies, Private dictatorships on: May 22, 2011, 05:36:44 PM
Walmart screws the farmer with its Monopsony-power and uses that to undercut the small operater with its Monopoly power.

However much I might be inclined to agree with you, WalMart clearly just exploits the differences between two of the largest and least competent governments on Earth, via the loophole of global free trade.  The Western farmer is 'screwed' because WalMart has opened a market of a billion consumers, while the Western retailer is screwed because WalMart can exploit those billion consumers as manufacturers.  But they can only do this because both governments have abrogated basic responsibilities and instead of preventing abuse and trade imbalance, sanction it.



I agree with you, government must not abrogate its responsibilities as the Libertarians demand, and people should not abrogate their responsability to hold government accountable.

I think the governments job is indeed to provide public goods like transport infrastructure and law-enforcement, to uphold the social standards that decent people believe are above the market, healthcare and education? Hell yes. We demand the government we pay for makes itself useful to us and that these expenditures are not exploited by the selfish interests of would be Robber-Barons while we the people abandon ourselves to the delusions and fantasies of the Austrian School.

There is a higher principal than power and money.

Capitalism is an animal, a useful animal to be sure, and the human must be its rider, not its grateful slave. We do not allow these corporate creatures of private power to consume everything in site and shit everywhere, we put the leash on the animal of capitalism and we say you cannot go there, you cannot eat that. You stay in your enclosure and apply yourself within the bounds of marginal social benefit and if you threaten the interests of the community of people we whip your ass and keep you in your place and say "Stay in your hole, dog, our highways and legal systems are not for you to fuck us with".

Yes, make money, innovate, but our children and the children of developing nations and our economic freedoms and the ecosystems of our planet are not yours to consume.



3  Economy / Economics / Re: Value of bitcoin denominated shares will eventually approach 0? on: May 22, 2011, 12:29:33 PM
So you discovered the problem with deflation...
It makes BTC good way to store value...
Terrible to invest with...

You don't want to borrow deflating currency...
Because you will have hard time paying back...
You don't want to lend deflating currency...
Because you will not receive all money back...

Buying stock=lending money in a way...
Everyone see this is bad idea...
Keep hoarding your bitcoins...
And selling only what it is necessary to sell...
Lower risk and better payoff...

Adjusted for viable economy.
4  Bitcoin / Bitcoin Discussion / Re: Bitcoin on AgoristRadio.com on: May 22, 2011, 09:44:02 AM
Agorist online media was what first introduced me to bitcoin. Agorism may not require computers, but technology is the most powerful weapon that freedom has on its side.

LOL, good thing massive government defense spending was able to develop first the computer and then the foundations of the internet in that case yes? Cheesy
5  Economy / Economics / Re: Anarcho-capitalism, Monopolies, Private dictatorships on: May 22, 2011, 09:02:35 AM
I'm on my phone so this reply will be terse, but there are two important critiques of the view expressed above.

1) Were these trusts providing better service at a lower cost than their competitors? Ultimately, that is the most important question.
2) Were their monopoly positions sustainable? That is, absent government intervention, wouldn't the ability of smaller competitors to more easily adapt to new markets and technologies allow them to efficiently compete with the trusts?

I think these three paragraphs address your questions-

Quote
Once a trust emerged, it would raise its prices and drop its quality of service, as well as engage in unfair trading practices that drove other firms out of business. The abuses of these monopolies became so great that they became a national scandal. So deep was antitrust sentiment that when both houses of Congress passed the Sherman Antitrust Act in 1890, there was only a single dissenting vote! (2) But U.S. presidents did not bother to enforce it, and the monopoly problem continued to worsen.

 The worst period of monopoly formation was between 1898 and 1902. Prior to this, there was an average of 46 major industrial mergers a year. But after 1898, this soared to 531 a year. (3) By 1904, the top 4 percent of American businesses produced 57 percent of America's total industrial production, and a single firm would dominate at least 60 percent of production in 50 different industries. (4) The power of these monopolies easily dwarfed the governments that oversaw them. As early as 1888, a Boston railroad company had gross receipts of $40 million, whereas the entire Commonwealth of Massachusetts had receipts of only $7 million. (5) And when Rockefeller, Carnegie and Morgan united in 1901 to create U.S. Steel, the result was an international sensation. Cosmopolitan magazine wrote:

 "The world, on the 3rd day of March, 1901, ceased to be ruled by… so-called statesmen. True, there were marionettes still figuring in Congress and as kings. But they were in place simply to carry out the orders of the world's real rulers -- those who controlled the concentrated portion of the money supply."

6  Economy / Economics / Re: Anarcho-capitalism, Monopolies, Private dictatorships on: May 21, 2011, 10:59:30 PM
I found this essay relevant to this thread, and quite amusing-

Quote
MONOPOLIES



 Austrians believe that the government destroys the market process for several reasons. Rockwell writes:
 "One obvious example… takes place at the Justice Department's antitrust division. There the bureaucrats pretend to know the proper structure of industry, what kind of mergers and acquisitions harm the economy, who has too much market share or too little, and what the relevant market is. This represents what Hayek called the pretense of knowledge.

 "The correct relationship between competitors can only be worked out through buying and selling, not bureaucratic fiat. Austrian economists, in particular Rothbard, argue that the only real monopolies are created by government. Markets are too competitive to allow any monopolies to be sustained." (1)
 The claim that governments cause monopolies defies the historical evidence. History actually shows the opposite: the more unregulated the market is, the worse the problem of monopolies.

 However, the Austrian claim is not wholly without merit. Utilities are examples of monopolies run or regulated by the government (although they are natural monopolies, and privatizing them doesn't work, as Britain found out in the 80s). Often companies persuade governments to erect barriers of market entry to potential competitors. Sometimes government subsidies allow one company to overpower its competitors. But such cases are usually the result of money-based lobbying, which is a corruption of the system. Corruption in the public sector no more "refutes" its central principle than does corruption in the private sector. The solution to corruption is to eliminate it by enforcing better laws. European democracies offer broad practical evidence that this sort of corruption can be greatly reduced.

 But this Austrian critique completely ignores another, more common type of monopoly: that which forms naturally on the unregulated market. There are many reasons for this tendency, ranging from "it takes money to make money" to the greater efficiency of large corporations. Without antitrust laws or some other countervailing market force, growing companies will not stop until they become monopolies or oligopolies.

 The height of monopoly growth and abuse in the U.S. coincided with its greatest period of laissez-faire, or government nonintervention in the market. Known as the Gilded Age (the period between the Civil War and World War I), this period saw the phenomenal rise of the Robber Barons and their great trusts (monopolies). John D. Rockefeller monopolized oil under his Standard Oil Company; J.P. Morgan dominated finance; Andrew Carnegie, steel; James Hill, railroads. Historians have well chronicled the ruthlessness of these men -- Morgan once remarked that "I don't know as I want a lawyer to tell me what I cannot do. I hire him to tell me how to do what I want to do." Rockefeller's father once boasted that "I cheat my boys every chance I get, I want to make 'em sharp." These men lived for market conquest, and plotted takeovers like military strategy.

 In the late 19th century, trusts formed also in wheat, fruit, meat, salt, sugar refining, lumber, electrical power, rubber, nickel, paper, lead, gypsum, iron, cottonseed oil, linseed oil, whiskey distilling, cord manufacture -- and many others. Once a trust emerged, it would raise its prices and drop its quality of service, as well as engage in unfair trading practices that drove other firms out of business. The abuses of these monopolies became so great that they became a national scandal. So deep was antitrust sentiment that when both houses of Congress passed the Sherman Antitrust Act in 1890, there was only a single dissenting vote! (2) But U.S. presidents did not bother to enforce it, and the monopoly problem continued to worsen.

 The worst period of monopoly formation was between 1898 and 1902. Prior to this, there was an average of 46 major industrial mergers a year. But after 1898, this soared to 531 a year. (3) By 1904, the top 4 percent of American businesses produced 57 percent of America's total industrial production, and a single firm would dominate at least 60 percent of production in 50 different industries. (4) The power of these monopolies easily dwarfed the governments that oversaw them. As early as 1888, a Boston railroad company had gross receipts of $40 million, whereas the entire Commonwealth of Massachusetts had receipts of only $7 million. (5) And when Rockefeller, Carnegie and Morgan united in 1901 to create U.S. Steel, the result was an international sensation. Cosmopolitan magazine wrote:

 "The world, on the 3rd day of March, 1901, ceased to be ruled by… so-called statesmen. True, there were marionettes still figuring in Congress and as kings. But they were in place simply to carry out the orders of the world's real rulers -- those who controlled the concentrated portion of the money supply." (6)
 The role of government in all this was to stand back and let this market process happen. It wasn't until Teddy Roosevelt launched his great "trust-busting" campaign in 1902 that this process was reversed. Actual enforcement of the Sherman Act reduced monopolies until the Roaring 20s, when laissez-faire policies again returned to Washington. Over that decade, about 1,200 mergers swallowed up more than 6,000 previously independent companies; by 1929, only 200 corporations controlled over half of all American industry. (7) The New Deal era ushered in yet another era of antitrust policy, again reducing the percentage of monopolies. This was followed by the Reagan era, a period which saw both massive deregulation and another frenzy of mergers and takeovers. In 1988, Federal Trade Commissioner Andrew Strenio remarked: "Since Fiscal Year 1980, there has been a drop of more than 40 percent in the work years allocated to antitrust enforcement. In the same period, merger filings skyrocketed to more than 320 percent of their Fiscal Year 1980 level."

 Two objections are possible here. The first is that these growing corporations may have captured government and then used it as a tool to capture the market. Those familiar with the Golden Age and Roaring 20s know, however, that governments were basically bribed to stand back and do nothing. They passed very little legislation that actively prevented any firms from entering the market and competing. The Reagan era was different, in that corporate lobbyists began using government as a proactive agent to discourage competition. Nonetheless, the periods of government trust-busting show the proper role of government, and its effectiveness in restoring market competition.

 The second objection is that a wave of mergers may result in a more natural and efficient equilibrium of larger players, and this could be beneficial for the economy. The result doesn't have to be a monopoly -- perhaps just an oligopoly. The problem is that at the top end, mergers become increasingly harmful to the economy, with monopolies merely representing the worst result. Even oligopolies engage in price-gouging and collaboration. A natural equilibrium hardly represents the best equilibrium -- as recessions and depressions show.

 How do Austrians deal with the historical correlation between laissez-faire and monopolies? By denying it, of course. The presence of any government at all proves that their conditions of a free market were not met, so the entire correlation is rejected. This is like someone attempting to argue that not watering a plant will result in the fastest growth. And when you point out to him that there is a correlation between the amount of water given to a plant and its rate of growth, he dismisses these experiments on the basis that they all used water.
7  Bitcoin / Bitcoin Discussion / Re: Restoring old backups of wallet.dat on: May 21, 2011, 10:17:54 AM
Many thanks.
8  Economy / Economics / Re: Why is deflation bad? NYTimes link on: May 21, 2011, 09:58:44 AM
Your rebuttal was interesting until this statement. A lot of people don't really understand Keynes, you can tell who they are by their sneers.

A lot of people don't understand Marx either.  But it's not a problem because they aren't on the news or in government advising politicians that we should all live in communes.  The problem is that Keynesians who don't understand Keynes have a lot of undue influence these days, since misunderstanding Keynes is an easy way to advocate bloated government in a not-yet-totally-discredited way.

A most agreeable comment.
9  Economy / Economics / Re: Why is deflation bad? NYTimes link on: May 21, 2011, 09:52:03 AM
This. Deflation would be a catastrophe with a debt-base currency... which is a catastrophe to begin with.

I for one do think a debt-based currency has its uses. It's very useful in a rapidly growing economy, since it strongly encourages lending and thus makes credit (liquidity) very easily available.

In a steady-state or a contracting economy, I would say a debt-based currency has systemic issues that have never been solved adequately.

In my view the timing of abandoning precious metals as the primary vehicle of trade has not been an accident. Precious metals themselves are very useful as a currency as long as the economy does not grow much more rapidly than the money base grows (via mining). During a period of rapid expansion (which, in turn, has historically stemmed from the increased availability of primary energy in the society), using only precious metals would constrain the availability of liquidity, so people will naturally make various kinds of contracts on paper, backed by the institutional violence of the state where contract laws exist, or straightforward threat of violent action by participants where they do not exist. As the largest bully of the playground the state then obviously wants to issue its own contracts, paper money, and everyone will accept it just because everyone else does.

I think Bitcoin or a similar electronic currency could be beneficial in a contracting economy. We need something else during rapid expansion.

I agree with this. I think the Depression was caused by a booming industrialized world trying desperately to hold onto a gold standard that was no longer fit for purpose. A golden straight-jacket as it were, and deflationary atrophy followed.

That is not to say deflation cannot be a good thing, life has different modes for different times. Ideologues usually fail to grasp the basics of multivalent truth as they tend to preffer a simpler manichean world view.
10  Economy / Economics / Re: Why is deflation bad? NYTimes link on: May 21, 2011, 09:31:13 AM

And... Keynesian economists should be ignored.

Your rebuttal was interesting until this statement. A lot of people don't really understand Keynes, you can tell who they are by their sneers.

11  Bitcoin / Bitcoin Discussion / Restoring old backups of wallet.dat on: May 21, 2011, 09:24:28 AM
Are there problems with this? Say you backup a wallet.dat, save it somewhere. The next time you run the client it generates for you a new wallet.dat. Months go by, now you wish to spend bitcoins in old wallet.dat. Can there be a problem from this if you merely copy back the old save from months before?
12  Bitcoin / Bitcoin Discussion / Re: Losing my Bitcoins on: May 21, 2011, 09:17:46 AM
One word of warning: do regular backups OR use a different "savings account" type setup, there can be issues if you try to restore an old backup directly.

Ideal setup is to have a wallet.dat with a single address generated offline, backup and encrypt it then send any spare bitcoins there. Your day-to-day stuff should be backed up roughly every 10 transactions.

Could you expand on what kind of issues please.
13  Bitcoin / Bitcoin Discussion / Re: The $1000 Bitcoin, yes it's worth at least that. on: May 20, 2011, 04:22:17 PM
I think it is more useful to imagine bitcoin as an internet success, not a world revolution. If bitcoin were as successful as a facebook, or a twitter, widespread, ubiquitous, with apps on smart-phones and bitcoin addresses shown on billboards and so on. 21 billion dollars in bitcoin trade would make the 1000 dollar bitcoin about right I would say. I'm not sure how a 21 billion dollar bitcoin economy compares to something like facebook advertising and data-mining revenues annually. Perhas it would be necessary to talk in terms of estimated bitcoin GDP.
14  Bitcoin / Bitcoin Discussion / Re: Read the introduction- still have questions on: May 19, 2011, 09:53:40 PM
Right, this is all rather intriguing but I'm rather perplexed by the lack of a username/password login thingy when I launch the client, seems all I get is a "main" bitcoin address and a receiving address, which seem to be identical.  I just don't get how people can't just use my address to not just send money to it but also pretend to be me?   I just don't understand it how the whole thing works.


Second question- I've had my client open for 5-6 hours or so and haven't received any money.   Seems

By now, mining requires powerful GPU's to be productive. The days when mining on your PC CPU are no more.

Money does not appear from nowhere, but you can get free bitcoins donated by the community in order to promote the system from this website:
freebitcoins.appspot.com

Your ownership of bitcoin on your computer is not defined by any username/password, but rather by your possession of a small file called wallet.dat on your computer. However you can use online services to hold your money for you, and they would require a username/password to log in, for instance mybitcoin.com

If you can sell something for bitcoin, you should do so. Perhaps on biddingpond.com
15  Bitcoin / Bitcoin Discussion / Re: Public Relations on: May 19, 2011, 03:26:56 PM
Nice one Gav, precisely the right tone.
16  Bitcoin / Bitcoin Discussion / Re: The $1000 Bitcoin, yes it's worth at least that. on: May 18, 2011, 11:48:55 PM
Currency backed by gold, not an illusion.

what can you do with gold that you cannot do with bitcoins?
it has value because is rare, period
can be used in manufacturing of some electronic components, but it is not only option... ~90% (?) of its value come from limited supply not from any kind of actual usefulness
same with diamonds


Diamonds are not really so rare, the supply of them however has been remarkably well controlled.
17  Bitcoin / Bitcoin Discussion / Re: Bitcoin concept is groundless TECHNICALLY..this article says..Can anyone defend? on: May 18, 2011, 11:41:41 PM
TECHNICALLY the author of this piece never once mentions the TECHNICAL problem which Bitcoin was created to solve.  And the entire point is that it doesn't have to be TECHNICALLY perfect in order to do so.  That's the difference between an economic system and a mathematical system.  The best economic system in the world doesn't have to be mathematically correct, because people are far from perfect and the alternative is basically trading with each other using scraps of paper, shiny rocks, or groundless faith in far-off bureaucrats.

Let's put it this way, my house doesn't have to be able to withstand a nuclear attack in order for it to be an economical way to protect myself against thieves.

I read the points raised and felt that the author is not correct, particularly as I also think that bitcoin is good enough at what it is. I don't feel inclined to go back and address the article point by point, suffice to say that bitcoin is useful for what it can be used for, and that it will so be used.
18  Bitcoin / Bitcoin Discussion / Re: Bitcoin concept is groundless TECHNICALLY..this article says..Can anyone defend? on: May 18, 2011, 10:09:46 PM

Are you saying that wouldn't be a political opinion?


I think it is not required to digress further when we examine again the title of this thread:
"Bitcoin concept is groundless TECHNICALLY".

19  Bitcoin / Bitcoin Discussion / Re: Bitcoin concept is groundless TECHNICALLY..this article says..Can anyone defend? on: May 18, 2011, 09:21:19 PM
This thread would be much better if there was less political posts to wade through looking for the actual rebuttals. Bitcoin is very good tech, all the wanky political assertions and theories and sweeping statements should get out and leave the way clear for the technical and economical talk.

However I beleive there is an Off Topic forum...

All life is politics, and Bitcoin is no exception.  We may attribute whatever leaning we desire to the project itself, but he political motivations of the founders are not in doubt.  They are alluded to in the genesis block.

The quote from a newspaper? That only seems to imply that Nakamoto Satoshi does not approve of quantative easing or other expansive monetary policy. If more people will look into bitcoin they will not need all the time to think it is a project for people with perculiar political views and nothing more. It would be as to say "let's make a form of money to be used only by right wing conservatives, we will insult, bore, and accuse of corruption, idiocy and badness everyone else". This is below the standard necessary for a widely adopted technology. Bitcoins political effects can emerge for itself.
20  Bitcoin / Bitcoin Discussion / Re: Bitcoin concept is groundless TECHNICALLY..this article says..Can anyone defend? on: May 18, 2011, 06:57:25 PM
This thread would be much better if there was less political posts to wade through looking for the actual rebuttals. Bitcoin is very good tech, all the wanky political assertions and theories and sweeping statements should get out and leave the way clear for the technical and economical talk.

However I beleive there is an Off Topic forum...
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