@hugo: they are 2d barcodes, not 3d. Correct.  you can store A LOT in there. QR supports up to 4,296 characters. The codes become bigger, though. Is it possible to develop a system or protocol where the reader recognizes automatically if there is only the address or there is an address plus an amount of bitcoins? EDIT: Maybe something automatic in the URI like: bitcoin://askfj23ljsfd343ljklsfj393elksjdf?pay=30 ? |
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I have no idea how much information you can include in a 3D codebar, but, if possible, it would be interesting to being able to include the address and a quantity in the 3D bar, so with one scan you can get the address and the amount of bitcoins, so you just have to confirm the transfer in the screen (f.e.).
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Another vote for Ubuntu here.
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Part of the film is legit, but other parts are simply wrong.
OK, so point out these parts, i am interested what was lies and what was the truth. I mysqlf noticed one inexactness, but i wouldn't call it a lie. Lincoln/greenback part was horrible, the tally stick part, etc... Its been a while since I watched it. |
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There certainly is some strong inflation going on right now in regards to Bitcoins, because demand is outstripping supply.
You intended to say "strong deflation", right? Inflation is when the size of the monetary base is increasing relative to the size of the economy, which ultimately results in the drop in relative value of the currency. What we are experiencing, in aggregate, is deflation. Inflation is when there is an increase of money bigger than the demand for money (not the size of the economy). |
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The 2k BTC that gets as benefits will be supposedly spent to buy things the owners need (food, energuy, etc...).
Only part of it, the rest being invested either as capital or lent for... interest  Ok. So we have settle that repeating the action does not produce the removal of all bitcoins. Now the issue is with the benefits a bank may have. This is not really an issue only for banks. It really is a issue for any business. You could say the same with a factory owner that earns 2K BTC. ¿What if he does not spend it? ¿What if he/she uses them to create new business and try to monopolize the economy? Thats really the question you are making, independent of being a bank or not. The issue is that monopolies are impossible in a free market. Monopolies only happen because of government regulations. If someone is making money in one area (absent of government regulations, like copyright laws or "anti"-trust laws) more competitors are going to enter into the area of business attracted by the benefits. That is why it has been seen empirically that in a free market prices tend to aproach production and labor costs. Also, as the original company gets bigger it gets to a point where it becomes less efficient and the smaller ones can outcompete it. |
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I tend to think that interest rates with a fixed will eventually lead to all the money being held by the bank, assuming it's profitable.
Ok look at it this way :
- 21 billion BTC circulating,
- Bank makes a 100k BTC loan,
- Bank eventually gets 105k BTC back,
- Bank pays its expenses, it's left with 102k BTC ,
[...]
- Repeat ten times, bank took 20k BTC out of circulation.
Lending with interest works, it doesn't really seem that sustainable to me on the long term, I guess it'll probably all boil down to "hey, let's try and see what happens!"  ?? This is wrong. Lets check again: - Bank makes a 100k BTC loan. - Bank introduces 100k BTC into circulation. - Bank eventually gets 105k BTC. - Bank has removed 105k BTC from circulation. - Bank pays expenses of 3k BTC. - Bank introduces 3k BTC into circulation. - Bank loans 100k BTC. - Bank introduces 100k BTC into circulation .... In your example, the bank is just adding and removing 100k BTC from circulation (In real life it will be a more smooth and continuos thing). The 2k BTC that gets as benefits will be supposedly spent to buy things the owners need (food, energuy, etc...). |
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I thought it was abit low-brow to be honest.
I prefered the two Money As Debt films, and also the Three Hour Long Epic that is Bill Stills The Money Masters.
I use to love Bill Stills films, specially The Money Masters, until I started studying real monetary history. The movie is a mix of truth and blatant lies. Big disappointment. I wouldn't call it lies - that would be an overstatement. It is just not very precise. The movie itself is just adjusted so that the masses can understand how the system works without too much thinking, and it does that well. For the ones who want details, they can study Wikipedia, books, or watch other movies. Money as debt is better though. But i have also met people who said that "money as debt is lies" because "it is more complicated than that". But in it's core, both Money as debt and AMERICAN DREAM are right. Central banks (and generally banks in today's sense) are here to steal from us and make us slaves. As simple as that. No. Simplification is alright. I am talking about distorting history and outright lying. Part of the film is legit, but other parts are simply wrong. That does not mean central banks are fantastic neither. |
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What if we all say: from today, one bitcoin is 1.3 PPUSD? Will it's value be that? I guess so, since it's worth what we all want it to. What stops us to do so? Can we call this "speculation"?
I'm very curious about that.
It would only work if you use government regulations to impose it. The only way to create a cartel is government regulations. Cartels dont last long in the free market (as you just witnessed). |
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Hello all, I can confirm that our version of the TSA in Canada (called "CATSA" here) now performs a similar molestation even on domestic flights. My beautiful country is lost too. It saddens me so....  The Madhatter Its coming to Europe as well. We are organizing protests for the airports, but I fear not a lot of us are going to turn out. |
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I thought it was abit low-brow to be honest.
I prefered the two Money As Debt films, and also the Three Hour Long Epic that is Bill Stills The Money Masters.
I use to love Bill Stills films, specially The Money Masters, until I started studying real monetary history. The movie is a mix of truth and blatant lies. Big disappointment. |
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When bitcoin starts developing and being more accepted there will appear bitcoin funds, where you put your bitcoins for a while and they lend them out or invest them. That way bitcoin savings will be also investment and you will get bitcoin interest rates.
Interest rates? Don't see how that'll work, theree'll never be more than 21 million of em. Hard wrapping your mind around such a radical new paradigm isn't it. It would appear so, since a limited quantity isn't an impediment to a natural interest rate. Ok, explain please. I have all 21 million bitcoins in the world and lend them to you at... I dunno, 50% interest, coz I'm a nice guy. Where do the other 10.5 million bitcoins come from? Or do we just agree that when you pay them all back the same 21 million btc will now be worth 50% more? But bitcoin is backed by nothing, or rather there's no government to say that one bitcoin is worth one ounce of unobtainium or whatever, so how would it work? There is a myth going around on the internet promoted by some wackos that says: The only way to pay debt and the interests is to print more money. Its false. You could pay a 100.000 dollar debt with a money supply of only 50.000 dollars (for example). You can have interest rates with a fixed money supply. |
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Capital is made of means of production : companies, tools, knowledge, machines,...
Bitcoin doesn't make capital, just as it doesn't make orange juice. It only permits you to buy it.
Yes, I am quite aware of that. I was merely wondering how could saving/hoarding bitcoin lead to higher capital accumulation of production factors. I am guessing that it somehow tells the market the time preference of human beings, thus determine how much resource are available in the future for spending. The explanation posited by the other forum goers seem to fit...but the answer seem to be bit unsatisfactory. When bitcoin starts developing and being more accepted there will appear bitcoin funds, where you put your bitcoins for a while and they lend them out or invest them. That way bitcoin savings will be also investment and you will get bitcoin interest rates. |
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Gold is only an ornamental commodity and remains so despite of it's rising prices.It's prices are increasing at an alarming rate and with that it is becoming more and more difficult for the common man to obtain it. If gold is really only ornamental it would no way have the price it has now. Give it another tough. |
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Still two hours to go here, but
Happy New Year to all my fellow bitcoiners.
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Problem is with your idea you have to trust politicians to stop printing money at some point and renounce that power, which is as realistic as giving your house keys to a thieve and ask him/her to watch your house while you are on holidays.
You missed the point. I'm counting on them NOT renouncing their power, but instead hyperinflating themselves out of debt which would render the currency worthless (hence, "perfectly useless fiat money"). If a stable decentralized currency (like Bitcoin) is a viable alternative in the public mind, they can go ahead and remove a few zeros from their currency afterwards and try to start over like nothing happened, but nobody would go for it. The only reason people still rely on this system is because they don't see an alternative. To be clear, I'm not advocating hyperinflation WITHOUT such an alternative. You know what, despite that hyperinflation will bring pain, this you are decribing might be the most realistic option. Anyways, hyper-inflation of the government currency is going to come at some point, like it has always happened. So one way or the other, its going to happen. |
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2. How could the price of gold could go down? What could happen to do so?
Politicians could implement sovereign money that is strictly enforced by legal tender laws and forbids excessive fractional reserve banking. This would take away the incentive for investors to run for safety as economies can get away from debt and savers can save. This would also end the manipulation of the AU an AG markets and might mean still reasonable gains. This would be extremely bullish for gold. Politicians would start printing money to pay for political favors and gaining votes and the money would depreciate quickly. Check history, for example the assignat in France. I have not found one example in history where politicians printing money directly does not lead to hyper-inflation. Government printing money = gold to the sky. This is basically what is happening with QE2 and the rest to come. A central bank monetizing government debt is the government printing money. The only thing that can bring gold down is if the government decided to default on the debt and start being fiscally responsable. Apart from that, everyone nknows that governments are going to keep printing money to pay the debt. |
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If a government currency is always more insecure than a non-government currency, then how do you explain the e-gold fiasco? I personally know someone who lost US$50K he was keeping in 1MDC at the time 1MDC's account was seized, and I've heard of others who lost even more. As far as I know, no one uses/trusts e-gold today, despite the best intentions of its founders who were nonetheless forced into complying with the demands of the government after they were falsely arrested on trumped-up charges of money laundering.
The attractive thing about bitcoin is that it seems to be a non-government currency that is relatively free from the coercive force of government at the present time. I do fear, however, that as the internet becomes regulated more and more, the day may soon come when it will no longer be possible to initiate TCP/UDP connections to arbitrary ports on arbitrary IP addresses -- something that would leave the internet as used by most sheeple intact, while denying services such at those provided by bitcoin, freenetproject, i2p, and any other innovative services that would not be granted waivers by some government-supported regulatory body. This sort of regulatory action would likely be justified with the standard approach of insisting that it is the only way to keep people safe from terrorism (or whatever the bogey-man of the year is at the time).
In order to stay one step ahead of those who feel threatened by a non-taxable, non-regulated, relatively anonymous currency, I hope some of us will put up with being called paranoid by many others by considering these threats, and come up with effective ways to neutralize them which can be implemented by the development team ahead of time when they become necessary. What you say is correct. I should have said that government currencies are always more insecure from inflation than voluntary currencies. If governments use force is another game (not saying you should not take the possibility into account). About the problem of governments controlling the internet the answer is this: http://guifi.net You have a english button there to get a translated site, and you should check the map button on the top right, to see how big is the network. Its basically a private and voluntary tcp/ip network. |
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But you don't have the satisfaction of handing them their own paper. It'd be more poetic IMO.
Problem is with your idea you have to trust politicians to stop printing money at some point and renounce that power, which is as realistic as giving your house keys to a thieve and ask him/her to watch your house while you are on holidays. |
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Close the central bank. The Federal Reserve dollar depreciates quickly due to loosing the monopoly on money and the debt pays itself quickly.
Andrew Jackson style.
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