I though on adding subtitles as well, but I think its very US specific.

I added spanish subtitles to the Hayek vs Keynes rap video, and that was worth it. Its more international. But this, as brilliant as it is, its just not international.

Anyway, I think I have watched it 3 times this morning and still do not get tired of it.

Why did your parents move from Poland to Canada?

By the way, you might like this: http://c4ss.org/

EDIT: If you dont mind sharing.

LewRockwell published an article about Bitcoin. In fact it was one of the first big internet publications to do it.

Peter Schiff has not been claiming inflation for decades... Peter Schiff claims that the crisis will turn into an inflationary crisis (most people agree). What Peter missed was the disinflationary phase after the crash of the bubble and he has acknowleged it.

I dont trust Mish. He got the desinflationary crash right, but the way he treats people that discusses with him is very very suspicious. He manipulates his words and builds strawman to attack them. I dont trust that kind of people. Also, his focus on the coming deflation when the inflatariony phase is about to hit is suspicious. Specially because his business is based in the USA and looks more interesting with a strong dollar...

Peter Schiff is in the same but opposite situation. Peter has a business that focus on foreign stocks, so the projection of a weak dollar makes his business look better, which is what might have lead him to downplay the desinflationary phase. Whether intentional or a mistake by Peter, in both cases I think it was a big mistake that did not help him, on the contrary it hurt his business. I think he same is going on with Mish but towards deflation.

What I really like about Peter is that he is funny and brings people to the movement. When I started discovering austrian economics I watched a lot of Peter videos, and that lead me to more complex stuff. Someone funny always help to spread whatever you want to spread.

This is too funny

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OlBYpldsl3g

PS: Does anyone know how to embed a youtube video? Is it posible?

Investors are expecting a heavy rise in the CPI that will offset the negative interests and will end up giving them money. Otherwise it makes no sense. Its a sign that investors expect heavy inflation.

As you said, this has been discussed before, but I will try to answer some:


Apart from the discussion if it really is enough or not, there can be parallel bitcoin networks. Its not an idea that is very popular around here (for obvious reasons) but I think that as the system starts to gain importance there will appear competing networks, most probably local networks belonging to a geographical area. There is no problem in several bitcoin networks at the same time. There are already exchanges between dollars, euros and bitcoins, and they could exchange between the different networks.


You are probably right in this one.

Also, firefox or chrome plugin that allowed to pay by just clicking a link would be a step forward. There has been some discussion around this but nothing has happened.


First, from a moral point of view, the people that is here earlier are taking risk and spending time in something that could develop into nothing. There has to be a reward for early adoption, right? I mean, jumping in the wagon when everything works is the easy task. Being here from the beginning when almost nobody was using it has merit. Also, remember that nobody is stopping anyone from starting a new bitcoin network. Satoshi has open sourced the software he has created.

Second, from a practical point of view, people will keep adopting Bitcoin because of different reasons. One is to show the finger to the banking system. Two, because as more business accept Bitcoin people will find them useful to buy stuff. And Bitcoins will behave better than any government fiat currency (it wont lose value), therefore they will find an incentive to use it. Also there is the pesky part that since it is an anonymous currency some people will trade in it and will decide to not pay taxes. This is not encouraged here, but can be nevertheless an incentive.


This is an important issue.


Having a decentralized system has it advantages and its disadvantages. But there could be in the future a similar system using bitcoins.

Not all forms of socialism reject money. Remember socialism is a set of goals, not a set of policies (whether you think this goals are important or possible is another matter).

Btw, Rothbard convinced the communist party of the USA to include the gold standard in their program

Hopefully you guys are not trolls and are up for an honest debate.


There has been more examples of anarcho-capitalism than Somalia. In fact, Somalia is not the best example of an anarcho-capitalist society. Also, about Somalia, their conditions have improved during their anarchist phase. Under anarchy Somalia has become the region with the cheapest telephone rates in all Africa, the one where agricultural and kettle production has grown faster, etc... You obviously are not going to turn a shithole into a paradise in some years. But the fact is that the conditions have improved.

I have also read about the anarcho-communist communities in Spain. First of all, they were short-lived, so conclusions about them should be taken with a grain of salt since nobody knows how they would have evolved. But you say they were "pretty nice places to live by all accounts"... but you dont talk how the political comites that were formed were regulating moral issues like sex and even alcohol drinking for their members. And they were strict about it (some of them, there were many types of communities). But again, the experiences are not very conclusive (for good or for bad) because they were short lived.


Its the other way around. Its the anarcho-syndicalist or anarcho-communist that tend to be democratic.


This is a better definition of personal/private property than the traditional communist, but is still weak. What if you can not defend your house? What if you rent a room?


mmmm, where does anarcho-capitalism opposes a trust system? Not only it does not oppose it, but anarcho-capitalism relies in a trust system.


Money appeared naturally from bartering. Why do you think it wont happen again? In fact, a system of money (or at least a free market money) is a system of barter. It just happens that people always barter their goods against one good, and for that reason that good receives the name of money. Its convinient, why do you think it wont happen again?

Also, ignoring that money does a lot of good for humans is not wise. Without money the coordination of production would be impossible and people would be much poorer. Specialization would not be possible and that means no modern science like medicine or physics.


Again, if you are trolls or dont care about honest debate dont bother answering.

I have hope to set up some sort of libertarian city-state in some place in Africa. There was a project to do exactly this in Madagascar. Some libertarian economists had talked with the president there to set up some special charter in some place to start a libertarian city (similar idea to Hong Kong). The key is that with a small tariff for the host country, it would be very profitable for them because all the activity the city would generate, and would be also very advantageous for the citizens that moved there since they could govern themselves and pay a very small tax only. The Madagascar president had accepted this and they were negotiating the terms, when there was a revolution. I wish I had the link were I read this.

If something like this actually happened I think that there is a big chance that a libertarian society could expand around Africa. Because the city would thrive and surely other people would copy the initiative, also the natives would copy the structure and could be influenced and educated, etc...

If something like this is stablished seriously I would go live there.

Yeah. Socialism in reality or at least for academic socialists (or whatever) is defined as a system of values where equality is the base and basic needs are covered for everyone (including food, shelter, etc...). How this is achieved is not defined, so its basically a set of beautiful promises (which is very useful from a marketing point of view, but not very realistic). Then there are different theories on how to get there. Mutualists just happen to think that the free market is the best way to achieve this ends. Again, all this comes from my little understanding of the subject, but I think I got it right.

So you see, if mutualists want a free market because that way they can achieve their socialistic ends and an-caps want a free market because they value it as the best way of living or the most moral or whatever... then they both defend the same, just with different objectives (maybe, because an an-cap can personally value equality as a favorable outcome). This is why I am telling you the line between capitalism and socialism gets blurred. Certainly mutualists will favour cooperatives and local commerce, while an-caps (maybe) will favour whatever its more efficient, but at the end they both accept playing in a free market.

The other socialist anarchists dont make sense at all to me. It seems just like nonsense with totally unrealistic views of the world, specially the economy. The anarcho-communist or anarcho-syndicalist want to impose a monetary system based on the hour standard (the hour as in time) but they say its not a monetary standard, and then they want to stablish a market to exchange the goods based on this hour standard, but saying that its not a market... And then you have the primitivists that want to stop using technology... I am finding mutualism ok, but it goes downhill very quickly from there.


Yes. Its a dangerous line to define the validity of property in subjective terms.

I did not say that they are right, its just what I got from the little I have read about mutualism.

But saying that since someone does not need something he/she is going to sell it cheap its a stretch. Moreover the mutualists really dont have problem with little owners. What mutualists mainly have problem and strongly denounce is the property acquired through unjust means, for example property acquired using aggressive force or government subsidies or favors. They claim that the big parts of land that are now unused are due to the government interference and not due to a free market process. I happen to agree with this last part, and I like the strong stance on unjust acquired land. I think that the rest of the market anarchists schools and even minarchists should denounce this issue more.

Again, my understanding of mutualism is still superficial so my opinions could not be exactly accurate.

It gets to a point where the lines between socialism and capitalism gets diluted.

Mutualists define capitalism from a historic (with marxian influence) perspective. Therefore capitalism is what happened in Europe after the industrial revolution. So basically for the mutualists capitalism means state capitalism or corporate capitalism.

Mutualism is defined as free market anticapitalism or free market socialism. I really dont care what you define yourself, as long as you defend some kind of free market with some kind of realistic property system. Mutualist in reality dont defend strict property but more of a exclusive use system. They defend that a property becomes unowned if the owner has not used for a long time, as opposed to anarcho-capitalist that are more strict with property.

Take all this with a grain of salt since I have just started looking into mutualism.

Well, what about mutualism? Its socialism and anarchism, and I am finding it ok. I might not agree with everything, but at least it makes sense, its coherent and has realistic views. But Chomsky is just charlatanery. Apart from being cautivated by his beautiful words I dont know why some people worship this guy. All he says and writes is beautiful nonsense. Anyone capable of minimal reasoning can see it. The best thing socialist can do is distance themselves from this joke.

Waiting for the update.

What is this application about? (if you want to talk about it)

Give it a second though.

Could it be that humans are acting this way because we live under an inflationary system? Its known that economic situation has a big influence in human culture. For example, during crisis music tends to be happier (people wants to disconnect from reality). During the housing boom, in my country, all the advertisment was focused on making you feel like "the winner". Now, all the advertisment has shifted and is promoting the image of companionship and "street people". Its well known that monetary influence can change how people behave. Therefore it makes sense to think that a lot of the reactions of the people that you are observing is not something inherently human, but more how people is reacting and has learn to behave because of the consequences of the monetary system.

Through history monetary inflation has always led to bubbles and you can see the same kind of behaviour during the boom phase. The "winner" image. Check the roaring 20's. But the same happened centuries ago. Inflation always promotes speculation and turns the people kind of "cheaply greedy" or "stupidly greedy", it discourages savings and promotes consumption leading to a more consumerist society, and making people not being able to project for the future, more now-minded, and less self reliant. It changes people personality. And it sure is happening now. The inflationary regime its influencing people personality. It turns people stupid.

In a deflationary system, with people used to prices going down, probably would behave in a completely different way. You can see this during the USA XIX century (for example), where prices where going down and the amount of investment was going up big time.

Also, in an economic sense:


You are assuming that more investment is better. But that is not necesarily the case. Productive investment is useful, but not any kind of investment. For example, there was a lot of investment during the housing boom, but it was misguided, and a lot of it was mainly malinvestments. We would have been a lot better off if it was saved or invested on something else.

And one of the key factors that allow productive investment is the natural interest rates, because they communicate the consumer intentions to entrepreneurs. Inflation artificially lowers interest rates, thus sending the wrong signals (in this case the interest rates is not the result of consumer actions, but its influenced by inflation) fooling investors into the wrong type of projects. Therefore the increase of investment you get from inflation is not only useless but even damaging, because it promotes malinvestments.

More investment is not always good. The natural interest rates are needed to guide investors about consumer demand.

Exactly, and while you do it, instead of telling the truth, that you are devaluating the wages of your workers and offering them as cheap labor, you claim that you are helping them because inflation creates wealth (or something similar)...

This is a video by George Selgin about the private coinage in the UK just before and during the earlier stages of the industrial revolution. Is one of the best conferences I have seen about monetary history, and the bitcoin community can get some very valuable lessons from it.

The whole video is full of them, but as I was watching it again one struck me: when the system became widely accepted, in spite of government trying to impose its money monopoly, the shops would demand double price if you wanted to pay in government money. Thats how much they valued their private coins. It was the government money that was rejected! I believe the same thing will happen with bitcoin once it gains some traction.

The obvious question is: if this coins were so popular and so useful why did they disappear? Fair question, and the answer is at the end of the video. And this is why bitcoin is such an incredible system, because it would have avoided the fate of this private coins because of its characteristics.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gn55fTRXZw

PS: Anyone knows how to embed a youtube video?

Chomsky the "anarchist" that constantly demands bigger government. What a joke.

I am discovering now a lot of really good left-liberatarian philosophers. Why do people focus on this guy? He is a joke. For example, he demands higher taxes on the rich while at the same time he is rich and has his money in a fiscal paradise to avoid paying taxes... He is very good with linguistics and he uses it as a charlatan.

Sorry, just woke up. What is this about?