I will never get this. A government currency is always more insecure than a non-government currency, yet people keep thinking otherwise Study history. Governments always try to steal their citizens by debasing the currency.

In reality is very simple, a government currency is backed by force. A non-government currency will only take off if it offers a quality currency, otherwise people have no reason to use it. A government currency is imposed by force, there is no incentive to offer a quality currency because people has to accept it anyways and therefore its always debased.

Government currencies are always more dangerous than voluntary currencies.

I think you wanted to say that bad money drives good money into hiding.

This is a very good point, its called the Gresham Law, although Gresham did not discover it and actually promoted bad money.

I think this can be a problem for bitcoin, since people will tend to use bad money (dollars, euros, etc...) before spending bitcoins. On the other side since bitcoin is not backed by the guns of any government maybe it pushes in the other direction.

I guess I could not let that one pass.

I broke Godwins law. Whats the punishment?

A bitcoin bank does not make sense. A financial market in bitcoin will be more like investment funds, where you lend your bitcoins and they invest them and receive interest on your investments.

But the money would be put to good use (by me obviously). How can you be against putting the money to good use? In fact, you should send me your money to or otherwise you are a horrible person.

Yes it will. And we all will thank you.

If you are interested in doing so, but in a more ecological way, you can save the electricity and send me the money it would cost you to do such a thing. I will see that the money is put to good use. 

I agree with BioMike. You wont be able to convince some people even if you had the most flawless and simplest logical reasoning. As you said is an emotional response.

I have been trying to promote bitcoin everywhere, all my facebook contacts know about it, etc... but I know that only a frew will find it intersting. Some people only take the effort to understand something new if its something big enough, if a lot of people is using it. Until then, no matter what you say, this people will reject it. Bitcoin target now is early adopters, people willing to try something new. Dont despair, its normal and it happens with everything new.

This is why mainstream media works. If something is broadcasted in mainstream media a lot of people is willing to accept it because they believe is the norm, because mainstream media is followed by a lot of people. They dont really care about its validity (to a point). I personally believe is a mix of two psicological reasons:

1) People is lazy and dont want to think, dont trust their own judgement, or both, so they rely in the masses to make decissions for them. If a lot of people is trusting it, it must be ok, right? And if the masses go wrong they wont really be embarrassed because everybody was fooled.

2) We all like to feel like we are part of a group. We all are a insecure in some way (some more, some less) and some people know how to use this insecurity by making us feel good by making us feel part of a group, of something greater. This is why all the TV's sell their brands, or why the radio commentators speak like a brother even when they are rich bastards talking to poor people. They have to make you feel part of a group, so once they have the emotional attachment, you will believe what they say and it will be hard for you to refuse it because they give you false emotional confort.

This came longer than expected. Basically, keep talking about bitcoin but dont despair. Its normal that only early adopters join. I thin bitcoin is doing great as a community. Now we only need more and more business accepting bitcoins.

This has to be a joke right? Who is so dump as to believe the government benefits the working class?

Bitcoin solves the problem of central banking.

Why? (I have my own opinion, but Im interested in hearing yours).

Human necessities keeps things "moving". Why do you want to force consumerism?

There was the liberty dollar, but since it was getting big, it was hit by the Feds.

Expiring currency does not prevent hoarding. In fact, it hurts the people that work for a wage more and benefits speculators.

Thinking that an expiring currency will avoid hoarding is extremely shortsighted (another discussion would be if hoarding needs to be avoided). The argument is similar to people saying that producing inflation avoids hoarding. Both are utterly ridiculous and for a very simple reason: People dont save all their wealth in money.

For example, nowadays a lot of people have their savings for retiring in the stock market. Or most rich people have their fortunes in the stock market as well, in commodities, etc... So in reality, devaluating the currency benefits them because their actives go up in price.

If people know that the money is going to lose value, they spend it and hoard something else that they think is going to keep its value.

And it hurts the people that work for a wage because wages are the last thing that gets actualized. So consumer prices go up, and then, some time later, wages actualize. During the time where your wage is not actualized you have lost purchasing power. This purchasing power that is being stolen, goes to the people that has active that get apreciated by inflation, basically the rich.

So it not only does not prevent hoarding, but it benefits the concentration of wealth, because its a lot easier to defend from debasing money for a rich guy than for someone that earns a wage.

PS: Then you have the problems of distortion in the price signals, leading to malinvestments and less economic growth for everyone.

Not really a safe haven. You got it right the first time when you said that the dollar is protected by the biggest army in the world. That is the reason why the dollar has not collapsed, despite all the monetary abuses by the USA government. If the rest of the countries could freely choose the dollar would be toast. But the reality is they dont.

The problem is there is no way the rest of the world can eat up what the USA government is about to do to inflate is debt. The Federal Reserve just passed the 1 trillion mark in treasuries last week, and its going to keep going. QE1, QE2, Bernanke has already hinted at QE3 and QE4 will follow (even if Bernanke does not call it that way, the Fed is going to be monetizing gov debt for years).

Treasuries are a loosing investment right now. They are coming from record low yields. They are now raising and can only keep raising.


TIPS follow CPI, which is a government indicator. Watch out with that.

Its the other way around. The free market stops cartels or monopolies. A cartel in the free market does not last due to competition. Its the government that with regulations helps some industries over others and creates cartels, or in some cases even monopolies.

You have to keep in mind that monopoly used to mean a government sanctioned enterprise. Everybody understood that only the government using its monopoly in force can impose a monopoly. But in the beginning of the XX century the meaning started to change as a way to justify more government control.

This is long, but in short you have to understand that a company internally functions in a "socialistic" way, or better said, internally functions in some sort of central planning (the degree changes depending on the structure of the company). Therefore as a company grows it faces problems because of its size and becomes inefficient (the same way a government can not centrally plan a country because its too big). At that moment the little ones can outcompete, and the only option for the big company is to use its financial muscle to get the politicians to enact regulations to stop the competition (usually under the excuse of benefiting the consumer) so it can keep operating.

In reality the people demanding more regulations are the corporatists.

Or they can approve a law with the orwellian title of "net neutrality" to end net neutrality and a lot of people will support it.

This is a solution: http://guifi.net

There is this thing called supply and demand. The supply of dollars is booming (to avoid direct default), and that means its price is going to go down, if you know what I mean. Going into treasuries now is crazy.

The USA will not oficially default, it will print its way out, which is a hidden default.

PS: I find it kind of amusing discussing with people that I highly suspect they are trolls. Its weird.

In my country we say: "Ir de Guatemala a Guatepeor", which means something like jumping from the frying pan to the fire.

In reality you are going from dollars to dollar debt so its not really a change what you are proposing. Treasuries are a bubble and a losing investment. You should look for other options.

Whats wrong with what I said?

Consumer information is not something important for the market?

Yes, but us as consumers get to tell other consumers what this companies are doing to influence their decision towards more respectful ways of doing business.

Non-violent action towards disrespectful companies is a basic tool of the market.