Look how long it took Deep Throat to get revealed for the Nixon scandal. The truth won't come out for decades, if ever. The man at the top of "Justice" can order everybody below to just shut it down.
It did not take that long for the Nixon scandal to come about. It was just the same scandal that was not uncovered for several administrations. I would highly doubt that another administration would try to hide this type of scandal as they have nothing to do with it and did not and would not benefit from keeping it a secret. |
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The Citizens United ruling states that "spending is speech". Ignore the "corporations are people" bit for now. Point is, that spending money is a form of speech, according to the US supreme court. Also, slightly more dubiously, but still with fairly strong precedent, anonymous speech is protected under the free speech amendment. Its pretty much a given that one can make anonymous speech whenever, one can't be denied the right to speak because he or she did not present an ID, for example. However, there have been cases in which anonymous speakers have been compelled to release their identity after the fact if their speech was false and supposedly caused monetary damage to a third party. Given this logic, doesn't it seem incredibly hard to legally justify AML laws, which in cases can specifically state: "Required the verification of identity of purchasers..." (Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988) Do you think there's any chance these laws could actually be eventually overturned if brought to the supreme court? I'm not going to doubt that anything can happen, AML could be overturned. But the an argument against overturning AML is that you have the freedom to spend your money anyway you want it, but you aren't compelled by any law to have a bank account, bank accounts are privileges, not rights. I can't draw the connection between AML and using money for speech. If someone who has money wants to use money to make a statement they are free to do so. What they can't do is move money around without it being reported. |
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guess it's still not easy for locals to actually buy bitcoins
Most of the BTC trade in Argentina is done on the "black market" and the BTC/peso exchange rate is showing a very large premium over other markets. I think this shows that a lot of people in Argentina are buying BTC. |
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Yes. The Korean dictatorship has killed around 3 million people. But the Americans are not far behind. Some 1 million has been killed in Iraq ever since Saddam was overthrown there. And many more were killed in Afghanistan, Libya.etc.
I don't think it has been quite 1 million people that died in Iraq. Not only that but much of that number is from people that were fighting against the US (casualties of war) and the rest were not killed intentionally. The people who were killed in North Korea were very much killed intentionally. The ones who have not been killed have been threatened with a number of bad things if they even disrespect the NK leader at the time. Iraq was still a completely illegal war (a war of aggression); so not only are the more direct casualties of the war the US's fault (and all other aggressors' fault), but the predictable outcome from it as well (namely, the expected sectarian conflict, for one). And this is just Iraq; the US has been involved a little all over the world, and when outright invasions weren't the methods used, coups and support for other brutal dictators was - like for example, Saddam, throughout his worst atrocities (before he disobeyed the US' orders and was punished for it). A war of aggression is not illegal. The US has not made any law to this effect. The US has not signed any treaties to this effect. The UN has not passed any resolutions to this effect. By this logic, every war would be illegal. You have a very liberal mindset. |
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http://www.nst.com.my/node/20925 US analysts conclude MH17 downed by aircraft KUALA LUMPUR: INTELLIGENCE analysts in the United States had already concluded that Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 was shot down by an air-to-air missile, and that the Ukrainian government had had something to do with it.
This corroborates an emerging theory postulated by local investigators that the Boeing 777-200 was crippled by an air-to-air missile and finished off with cannon fire from a fighter that had been shadowing it as it plummeted to earth. The evidence really does not support this. It is very much accepted that it was shot down with a SAM. Even Russia acknowledges this. |
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Sadly the law suit won't have much ground to stand on and will just be brushed aside.
I doubt it will be brushed aside, but I don't think the plaintiffs will win. This looks like a way for class-action trial lawyers attempting to bully their way to get a settlement from facebook so they can get paid. This was said above, but it should be said again that the best way to stop the spying is at the polls. |
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I was always under the thought the faster you pay it the more weight is off your shoulders so I don't quite understand why others are disagreeing.
because people think that investing the money instead of paying it back will yield a higer return than the 4.4%. But those guys don't think about taxes and risk. You only pay tax on gain. As for risk, you can always buy investment grade bond which offer higher than 4.4% yield. Investment grade bonds will carry risk. If you are earning 4.4% on an investment grade bond, then your expected return (after accounting for defaults) is going to be closer to 2 or 3%, however your actual return may be less. When you payoff your mortgage the return is 100% guaranteed. |
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I will send 1000BTC to anybody that can convince Obama to go to Chicago and stand in front of the families of those 20 dead from the July 4rth weekend and say "The world is less violent than it has ever been."
Obama is so into basketball....who does he think he is... King James?
I don't think even the SS could handle that threat.
He would be lying if he were to say that. His anti-gun policies actually make the country a more violent place. Criminals do not follow the law (obviously) so when it is illegal to carry a gun they will not follow this, but they know that law-abiding citizens are not carrying a gun so they will be less hesitant to use their gun to commit a crime. |
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The path to hell is paved with good intentions. Obama espoused his good intentions of having everybody covered for a low cost. The reality is this cannot happen, especially when all other insurance in the US is for catastrophes - not day to day expenses. Health insurance shouldn't cover well child visits or annual checkups - those the patient should be paying for.... but that would require the patient be responsible for their own fricking body - something I see in less than 20% of my patients now.
I don't think it was so much a good intention, but rather a way to spread his liberal ideals of having a big government. He knew that people would not be able to keep their health plan, yet he promised that people would be able to do so. He raised taxes on everyone in order to pay for this new social program. |
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For someone who is not a computer geek and has not owned bitcoin yet, getting some seems indeed a hassle. (People recommend signing transactions on a separate computer, not connected to the internet, and then moving the signed TX to the main computer via USB stick. I presume that 99% of mankind would stop reading right there.)
People will adapt. This is exactly the same story which was with first e-mails, smartphones etc. Information will spread. Also, herding behavior is very strong with people, just look at the success of whatsApp - whose business model is "pay for something you already get for free". They only succeeded thanks to the herd behavior. And the herd day of bitcoin hasn't really come yet. People using bitcoin right now are like people who used Nokia Communicators or Windows Mobile palmtops. And yeah, it is worth noting that when the smarphone revolution really kicked off, both Nokia and Microsoft missed the train. I think this will turn out to be very true. Over time people will come up with ideas to make BTC more user friendly and easy to use for people who are not technically inclined (circle possibly). People will also understand bitcoin better then they do today. |
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It was really no secret that the Fed spent trillions on bailouts. I think the $16 trillion figure is somewhat inflated though. It is also important to note that all the money used to bail banks out has been paid back with interest (except the money lent to the automakers - it was really given to the UAW).
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Credit score has little value if you don't plan on borrowing money from bank.
This is technically true, however most people do not have the resources to never have to borrow from the bank, especially during their earlier years (prior to turning 45ish). When people get older they will have to rely less on bank loans, but they still may need one in case of an emergency (unemployment, medical expenses among other things). |
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Finally, there is also an opportunity to profit by giving out loans. This includes mortgage loans. A business could be set up that allows investors to pool their money together and give out loans. The profits would come from the interest that is paid once the loan is repaid.
zopa.com? lendingclub.com ? peer2peer lending is a thing already. As someone who used to lend on Prosper, I'd advise to stay away. There's a reason a lot of these people can't get loans from banks. Seconded. Prosper was a pretty decent way to invest early on but the lack of ability to get judgements and ever increasing default rate chased me from it. The bit coin lending platforms seem too similar for comfort. You must be talking about pre-2009, that was when the default rates at Prosper were through the roof. After they came out of SEC registration in Fall of 2009, loan quality was greatly improved and defaults lowered dramatically. Today, I'm making a little over 12% there now, a damn sight better than a savings account! 12% after you factor in the default rate or before? How does lender go after deadbeat in a peer to peer lending platform? I am sure that the 12% is before factoring in the default rate. The expected value of all prosper loans is much lower then this, but still better then a savings account. The lender does not go after a borrower who does not pay their loan (with prosper), but prosper will first attempt to collect with their internal collection department, and if the loan falls a certain amount behind then it will be sent to a collection agency. |
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I think it has value because of the fact that it is a peer to peer currency. This is very similar to why paypal has been so successful. The difference between PP and BTC is that users need to trust PP to hold their money while users of BTC do not need to trust anyone to store their funds.
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Short answer to the OP: no it cannot.
The internet essentially is now impossible to shut down to be stopped. It is very decentralized (much more so then bitcoin), there are many very large players that control small parts of the internet, if one of them were to shut down then others could take over what they previously did.
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Honestly, if you believe in bitcoin invest in bitcoin. Why bother with these start up companies to make a quick buck when there is so much risk. If you do decide to invest, just do your research (as always when investing).
The start-ups are less risky because they can easily change from bitcoin to another altcoin that (could) becomes more successful then bitcoin. The start-ups are merely betting that crypto currencies in general will be widely used. I don't personally think an alt will ever overcome bitcoin, but if this were to happen the start-ups could still profit. |
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So is every other fiat currency in the world.....
/Topic
Cash fiat is a target for criminals, however it generally will have a smaller percentage of total transaction volume of criminal transactions then what I would estimate that BTC has. |
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Do all governments think regulation is their primary job?  The bitcoin economy seems to have developed pretty well without (or because of) the government not intervening. Gov regulation will happen, the mainstream wont use bitcoin without it so as long as its "reasonable" regulation we all get rich and have extra resources to create bitcoin 2.0 to move the goal posts further. I agree. Mild government regulation will likely cause bitcoin to get an additional amount of legitimacy and will cause increased levels of adoption. |
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So as everyone keeps coming up with these new coins and new algorithms, how do they decide how many total coins to offer? I know LTC is exactly 4X as many BTC. Can anyone shed any light on this, or is it completely random and up to each individual coin maker? What are the possible positive and negative impacts on a somewhat random, finiate amount of coins?
You already had many good answers to you question. I also think it is important to mention that the "coin makers" (called devs) can chose to add a "premine" to the genesis block (the first block). The word premine is a bit misleading, since nothing is being mined, they have simply started with giving themselves x millions coins as a rewards for making a new revolutionary coins that everyone should invest in. I don't know if "revolutionary" is really the proper term to use. Most alt coins provide no value that bitcoin cannot provide and their network is much less secure then the bitcoin network. |
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Let us say the creator of an altcoin deposited a stash of dollars, from which miners would be gradually rewarded. Works similar to 'mining' of USD. I don't think this would make very much sense to me. How would the creator of the "dollar coin" be compensated for doing this? What incentive would he have? |
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