From SatoshiDice.com:


It seems the ghost of Satoshi has chosen now as the time to test transaction quantities on the network.

Ohhhhhhhhh I see!!! Etlase2 has a problem with wealth inequality. THAT is why he hates bitcoin, because someone with more coins could "influence" the market more than someone without.

Etlase how does Altcoin counter this phenomenon?

LOL alright look man, this is just too careless of you.

1. I tell you that "regulation" in this context means "from the state" and that Bitcoin is unregulated because there is no state involvement.
2. You then retort by selecting a definition from The Free Dictionary of "regulation," citing "2.  A principle, rule, or law designed to control or govern conduct."
3. You then insult me by saying "I only select information that suits my view"
4. Then you go on to suggest Bitcoin IS regulated, because it fits the definition you cited.

Here's there full definition from the site you used:


As you can see, the THIRD definition discusses the State, "governmental order." This is the kind of regulation to which I'm referring, as I mentioned specifically. I know Bitcoin has its own rules. But it is not REGULATED by the State, and thus exists within a free marketplace.

So basically, you selectively used information to counter my claim, then lampoon me for "selectively using information"... 

I understand you think currencies need to inflate with "economic activity" and grow at the pace of the economic growth. You're welcome to that opinion, but it is false. The world can operate just fine with a fixed money supply, so long as prices are free to move. I understand you like Altcoins, but it offers no advantage over Bitcoin. If I'm wrong, and your money wins in the end, then I'll buy you dinner and apologize.

Hehehe... you are so enamored with inflationary money that you forgot in a free market people (at least before Bitcoin) would use metals as a currency, not fiat. Metals require storage, and thus it is possible for interest to be negative, and for you to still lend. You don't want $1m in gold in your house, I assure you. But, if talking about Bitcoin with no storage cost, indeed there may never be a negative interest rate in a free market.



I've never "equated" monetary base with monetary supply. Base is a portion of supply. They are not equivalent. We agree on that point, right?

The issue of "money being less available" is only a problem if you assume prices do not adjust to money supply. Why do you assume this? It wouldn't matter if there were 2 million or 21 million or 210 thousand billion bitcoins. Prices will adjust to the supply. If prices are free to move (absent government price controls) then the supply of money really doesn't matter, so long as it doesn't change too quickly and so long as nobody gets special printing privileges (both of these are addressed by Bitcoin).

And what's with the namecalling? Your arguments aren't THAT bad that you need to reduce yourself to insults. Have some respect for yourself.

+1

Price stickiness is always a short-term phenomenon, and economics is at its best when it tends to focus on the long-term effects of things.

Addressed above. Don't be so snide.



Again, 1907 still had those issues I mentioned. Fractional reserve banking, and laws which prevented banks from branching. Even regardless of this, let's assume such panics can happen in a free banking environment. So what? If you don't like banks that are prone to runs, don't bank with fractional reserve banks! In a free market, vulnerable institutions go away, because people don't like risk when they bear it themselves. Today instead, the Federal Government bails out banks meaning everyone has to pay for their failures. If a bank is so vulnerable that a panic/run ensues, then that bank shouldn't exist and the market will get rid of it in due time.



When did I praise the FRB (I assume this stands for Federal Reserve Board?)? The Fed was created in 1913... and I was referring to the 19th century, which is the 1800's, as a time of massive economic growth that occurred without the Fed.



Free market banking = capitalism. Capitalism refers to the absence of state coercion in the marketplace, meaning a free market in everything. And yes, Bitcoin permits "free market banking." I'm doing it right now, actually. Bitcoin is not "the most extreme form of banking regulation." Bitcoin is not regulation... regulation means mandates which come from the State. The fact that a bank can't "print" a Bitcoin doesn't mean the bank is "regulated." I can't magically make gold appear in my hands either, but I'm not "regulated" by gold. You need to work on your terminology I think.

Another great chart...  

"In other words, the value of the dollar remained extremely stable for 150 years, then The Fed was created in order to "stabilize the value of the dollar" and the result has been a 95% devaluation of the dollar in less than 100 years following its creation. "

http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig10/voorhees1.1.1.html

Alright since you require a response to each part of your initial posting, I'll oblige. I singled out your last point originally because I thought it was the most important to address.


I'm not forgetting that interest rates increase as money becomes scarce. That's no different from what I'm saying. Prices rise when goods are scarce. When money is scarce, the price of money (interest rate) rises. This brings incentive for savers to deposit their money with those interest-bearing accounts and through this mechanism the supply and demand for money is brought into balance.

I don't see what you mean by a "negative interest problem." Who cares if interest rates go negative? Is it that odd that under a world of falling prices, a rate of -2% might still be a good deal? If prices fall at a rate of -3% per year, then one should be happy with a -2% interest rate. It is not the nominal rate which is important for enabling an economy to function, but the real rate.  I see no reason to think interest rates can't or shouldn't go negative in a world of falling prices.



Sorry, what am I being unclear about? Both monetary inflation and deflation are equally bad. Money supply should tend toward constancy. A rate of 0% inflation/deflation means money is unchanging, and this enables a market economy to better use it as a unit of measurement, in the same way that a yard stick ought to remain at one length, or that a foot shouldn't be 13" next year and 14" after that.

Bitcoin is the first money that is neither inflationary nor deflationary - it approaches constancy. This is good.

Separate issues.

"Deflation" deals with the supply of money. The eight (or more) decimals of Bitcoin deals with notation. Adding zeros doesn't increase or decrease supply, it just changes the way it's notated, allowing smaller pieces (of the same supply) to be transferred.

Sigh. Those were due to A) fraction reserve banking and B) US laws which prevented banks in the 19th century from having multiple branches, thus preventing them from diversifying their risk pools (if anything bad happened in a town, there'd be a run on the bank, since it was known that bank couldn't by itself cover the deposits).

And let's also remember that even regardless of those short-term banking panics (which were not as common as you seem to indicate), the 19th century saw the rise of the most productive and powerful economy in the world, lifting tens of millions of people out of poverty and raising living standards immeasurably, even with multitudes of immigrants arriving. I'll take that over the stagnant, debt-riddled socialist mires of the modern era.

The more you look into the "problems of free market capitalism" the more you will discover they tend to stem in fact from government policy. The free market is not perfect, but it gets unfairly shit on by people who seek to control others.

I'd rather not pay money to ensure that my purchasing power is continually reduced. That's a pretty silly insurance policy. Should we also argue that our 35% income tax rate is the "insurance policy" we pay against anarchy risk?


Yes let's assume Bitcoin supply is constant at 21m. How does the Bitcoin financial system respond to velocity and exchange rate shocks?  Prices are self-correcting, they don't need to be managed or shepherded over. If the USD/BTC exchange rate goes out of whack, then speculators will tend to take advantage of the discrepancy and the rate will be corrected (this happens everyday using BitInstant!).

Interest rates are also self-correcting. When they go too high, they encourage savers to deposit funds and invest them, and money becomes less scarce. Interest rates then fall, and the savers lose the incentive. Thus, it's constantly rebalancing. The interest rate cannot shoot off in one direction forever, except in cases of extreme hyper-inflation or hyper-deflation. Both of which are impossible with Bitcoin (let's also remember Bitcoin is not actually deflationary... it's merely neither inflationary or deflationary, because the money supply is constant).

Let's also remember that "financial meltdowns" are more common and more serious when central banks exist. Great Depression? Central Bank. Post WWI currency crises in Europe? Central Banks. 20% interest rates in the 80's? Central Banks. 98% devaluation of USD happened since Central Bank was created (currency had no devaluation prior). Current global financial crisis and destruction of Europe? Central Banks.

The central banks are what CAUSE the financial problems, because they are trying to centrally plan the price of money. Just as the Soviet Union learned that central planning fails when it comes to food and clothing, it also fails (and for the same reason) when it comes to money itself.

Yes, this is the "Big Question"... does an economy work without perpetual debasement of the money supply? In the way I have phrased it, it almost answers itself, doesn't it? Stated differently to further point out the absurdity of the notion, will human beings stop trading with each other if the means of exchange they use isn't made increasingly worthless over time?

The answer, of course, is that yes, humans will trade with each other even if their money does not get debased. In fact, I would argue that in a world in which the currency is NOT debased, we might observe much healthier economic activity.

Charlie's points are representative of most of the world's opinion of monetary economics. We learn economics in school, and schools teach us (invariably) that inflation should be "low and constant", and that if we observe "deflation" the world will, in fact, end! We've been taught extensively that no matter what happens, the worst thing for an economy is deflation. The mere utterance of the word sends children crying for the hills.

Yet, what if the economics taught in school is wrong? What if deflation is, in fact, not the end of the world? Is this possible? Would people continue to buy and sell goods if they know the nominal price of those goods is likely to fall in the future? I argue that yes, absolutely people will buy things. There is certainly a question of extent here - if my grocery bill will be 1% of the price tomorrow (a 99% discount from today), then I might actually go without eating for the day, and enjoy more food tomorrow. BUT, I will not wait to eat forever. And it is in this phenomenon which the scary demon of deflation is slain.

For just as I won't wait forever to eat food (even if prices are falling), neither will I wait forever for other things. I need a car, and a house, and clothes, and a million goods that I enjoy. If prices are falling, I'll make a judgement - should I buy now, or later? The argument of the Scary Deflationists is that people will continually make the judgement "later" and will halt their purchases indefinitely, sending the economy into Paul Krugman's favorite terrifying term, a "deflationary spiral". Yikes!  But upon just a bit of consideration, we know people will not halt their purchases forever. They will buy things, and consume things, and produce things. While the patterns of these behaviors may differ under and environment of inflation vs deflation, it cannot be true that trade simply stops under the latter.

In reality, what you would find is that people may spend and consume less than they would under inflation. This means they will necessarily save more. Inflation incentivizes people to save less, spend more. Deflation incentivizes people to save more, spend less. Why is it that economic text books (those found in public schools) argue in favor of the lower savings, and against the higher savings?

The reason tends to come from a misunderstanding of how economies work. Most people think that "consumption" is what drives an economy... basically that "eating things" is what makes economies strong. Those of the Austrian School of economics, on the other hand, argue that it is in fact "production" which drives an economy. That "making things" is what makes economies strong. And thus if you understand and agree with the production argument, you would find that an environment of high savings is much more suited to permit economic growth - for most development tends to come from capital that is saved and invested. Capital that is consumed cannot be invested. And thus a deflationary environment, where people are encouraged to save more and consume less, permits a fertile ground for investment and growth.

This big argument comes down to one's fundamental view of how economies work. The majority of the world advocates consumption, and a minority advocates production. I happen to be in the minority, and thus I look forward to a world where money is not debased in perpetuity - where instead of ongoing inflation we have a money supply that tends toward constancy. The constancy of money (even if it causes falling prices) will enable a vastly stronger economy than we have today, where savings is punished and destroyed.

Now, there are Nobel Prize winning economists on both sides of this debate. One side is right, and one is wrong... and again I refer back to my first remark. Will people trade with each other without their currency being debased? I think they will, and I think they'd come to prefer it.

We all live in a world where prices are always rising. It can be scary to imagine a world where they are falling. But perhaps, just perhaps, that is actually how an economy is supposed to work.


 

My thoughts:

-Rates and fees are pretty good, not a deterrent.
-$500/$1000 load limit is problematic, and would be a deterrent for me. I know of similar cards with limits more like $10,000, and that is reasonable.
-The requirement of SSN is a deal-breaker though, as is the fact that it's US only  (interestingly, if you solve the latter problem, by necessity you solve the former

I appreciate you doing market research and I hope you find the feedback here valuable.

Feel free to show them http://www.satoshidice.com/chinese.php

Though not sure if that helps with the legality

Go kick ass Roger!

Gotcha, thanks for the clarification.

Tell me, how do I find the people who will gift me the components of a car, and who will gift me the service to build it? What wonderful act have I bestowed upon all these laborers that they will toil away on my behalf and yield my automobile?

"Gifting", in the sense that you mean it, could not even put a pencil in front of me. In fact, an entire community of 120 people living so graciously in their gifting-only community could never produce a pencil, let alone the computers being used by us all to engage in this conversation across thousands of miles instantly.

Wow that is just so false that I don't know how to address it.

Does gold have any relationship to reality? Do Bitcoins? Do cigarettes and seashells and cattle have any relationship to reality? I think they clearly do. They are real. And, they are money. Sooooo... WTF are you talking about?

You guys are completely oblivious to the wealth you enjoy due to the vast division of labor around the world. A society limited to 120 people would not be a society anyone on this forum would enjoy living in, I assure you.

You would spend your days toiling for food, and die before you were 45 years old, if you were lucky enough not to die as a child.

An no, jago25_98, it is not "more natural" to trade via "gifting" than via money. Again, for the thousandth time, "money" is just that good which is most commonly "gifted" within a community. There is no difference between "gifting" your neighbor a dozen eggs or "gifting" your neighbor a gram of gold or a bitcoin or some US dollars, save that gifting with the later examples is far more convenient and permits a less costly transaction and thus more wealth for both participants.

Try to REALLY live without money entirely... just trade things you have for things you want (without using any intermediary like dollars, btc, or bullion) and you will discover it is not the romantic, peaceful, pleasant thing you imagine it to be. You will impoverish yourself swiftly, for you are surrendering the utility of one of man's greatest technologies - money.

Inefficient to the point of starvation and utter poverty. I consider that inferior, but you're welcome to disagree with that judgement.

You did not address the point of my prior post - that money is intrinsic to exchange. If you are opposed to money, you are opposed to exchange, because money is just the name given to that good exchanged most commonly.

And please explain how "trading is an exploitation of modern slavery"?  When I trade my eggs to Bob in return for several loaves of bread, which of us was exploited? Also, was money involved... were the eggs money, or the bread? Has either of us done something wrong by agreeing to the trade? Now... what if instead of eggs I actually traded Bob a small bar of silver for the bread? Has exploitation occurred? Is silver money... or is bread? And one step further, what if the silver is cut into round circles. Is silver money yet? What if... I actually previously traded my bar of silver for a deposit receipt from a man who promised to guard the silver from bandits, and then I trade the receipt for the bread?  Any exploitation occurring yet? Did I use money?

My point is this: money is not anything weird or separate from barter. Money IS barter. It's just the name given to the most commonly bartered item. And again, if you're opposed to money, you must necessarily be opposed to barter, and thus trade, and thus exchange. And if so, you are condemning man to live with only what he is able to produce himself. This is a world of poverty and starvation, and if you don't think that's inferior, then we can disagree on that point.

Hello,

I need someone to translate SatoshiDice.com home page content into Spanish.

Please PM me with your price (only need the home page, not other pages).