China is only an industrial super power because they keep their currency fixed.
Perhaps by "fixed" you mean importing USD inflation and creating money from nothing as fast as helicopter Ben? Anyway, there are a few other factors that are involved, no matter what you might mean by industrial super power.
I have heard that the PRC is starting to see some inflation..
Ya think? Take a look at real estate prices, real wages, or any other commodity over the last 20 years to get a feel for how much RMB is being printed. All double digit annual inflation. Another index that shows monetary inflation is unadjusted GDP. |
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T'aint a good idea.
Who decides if a coin was stolen? Who really knows exactly what happened? The best answer is "nobody". Do you trust somebody you don't know to tell you if some other people or transactions you didn't know were in the right or wrong? Maybe you do, maybe you don't. The point is, the network shouldn't care.
After all, the coin was never stolen: only the private key may have been. The coin is right there in the block chain where it always was. Coins can be marked, and tracked, but they are still coins. The marking is just that, a mark (a unique history of public keys), and it is up to you to interpret that.
If you want to analyze the block chain to follow transactions and track down an enemy, go ahead. However if you ask me to keep a list of coins you like or don't like, I'm gonna say no thanks.
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I was speaking to a young guy in china who just spent 1 month in jail - for having a completely non-political text chat with someone in Tibet.
I tend to believe it - from my chats with this Chinese guy - he's pretty apathetic about politics. (though perhaps one 'has' to appear disinterested in politics there to stay out of trouble??)
The person he was chatting to happened to be a member of some group the government doesn't like.
The government just needs to lock a few people up like that for a 'short' time - with no recourse, no appeal - and the message gets out about what not to do.
With consequences like that for ordinary Chinese - who would risk running a bitcoin program if the government tells them not to? Very few I'd guess.
Keep in mind this could be a story from any force-imposed tax regime in the world. The psychology is the same. As long as we give guns and uniforms to a few people and let them decide to lock us up and take our possessions for no reason, they will eventually do so. Sadly there are far more political prisoners in the USA, for example. |
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They take good care of the land and after it’s perfect we steal destroy it.
Native Americans just more ethical than we are. They’re giving us a fighting chance to keep our currency. We Some psychotic idiots just killed them for their land no reason.
FTFY |
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http://www.bitviewer.netOur proxy allows you to view .BIT namecoin domains without any DNS modications or special software. Now you can visit all your favorite .BIT enabled web sites with any web browser (even your cell phone!) Simply type your desired .bit website into the address bar and click go! Donations: Bitcoin:13hXch3B1kLQxJWmW972rvvFmboDcqy9kV Namecoin:NACTZ4uwsQTEagbvYrU5vmyd5mgSfzM2Wf Keep up the good work! donation sent |
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The workings of MPOE stocks/bonds/options will probably go a long way towards stabilising the BTC price in USD.
+1 Alsoa lot of people running pairs trading algorithms will help. |
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I wonder what would happen to the world if borrowing currency became illegal. Not just no interest on loans, but no loans on currency to begin with.
That is, you only have what people give you, or you create yourself (through labor) -
Would it improve human relationships?
Would it destroy the idea of raising capital?
Would it kill millions of people?
Like any prohibition of victimless behavior, it would kill a lot of people and create huge problems such as corruption, monopolies, incarceration and all the associated problems. This is very basic psychology. Interest rates would go up, but people will not stop lending or borrowing. Everyone suffers, even the few who get rich with their overpriced black market services. I was hoping we could move past this kind of idiocy soon. |
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BS!
Did publishing disappear after Gutenberg?
To use Falkvinge's analogy: Did ice sales and cold storage end after refrigerators were invented?
Are you saying bitcoin will kill flexcoin, blockchain.info, and mtgox?
No, publishing technologies -help- publishers. Mp3 has helped and will continue to help musicians. And new financial technologies will help banks.
Sure, there will be some banks that fail because they don't embrace what people want fast enough but others will profit.
Blockbuster has struggled but look at Netflix.
New tools for finance and commerce will only give banks more business, not less!!!
The only thing bitcoin tries to kill off is fraud via counterfeiting and other secret money creation.
While some will be happy to keep paper wallets under their pillows others will want to use a bank.
You can take that the bank.
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True, but you can easily have a currency union without political union. For example, many countries use the US dollar or peg to the US dollar.
Greece could stay in the Eurozone, but the Greek government could default on its debt repayments. Of course, no-one would lend any more money to the Greek government. The government would immediately have to start spending within its means, and is that a bad thing? The debt of the Greek government is so bad that if they default, it would completely colapse, all services suddenly cutoff probably leading to dangerous anarchy if not outright revolution. So yes, now it would be a bad thing. The EU should not have allowed Greece to be so heavily indebted but they could not force them, because it is a political issue. The greek government "decided" on that. But this crisis isn't about that. This crisis is about finding ways to keep Europe chugging along without exposing the folly of exponentially-increasing government debt.
Also true. Even the U.S. is at risk of this "contagion". I'm still confused by the fact that in a day that money can be freely created out of thin air, such debt will still make so much pain... Imagine 2 cases: Case 1: ECB just printed several trillions of euro and lend it to greece for 50 years, then greece will have plenty of cashes to spend: They hire all the leading construction companies to rebuild their country and buy what ever high tech/luxury things made in France/Germany to decorate their home Case 2: Greece suddenly find out an area rich of petroleum near their sea shore, it worth several trillions of euro, and ECB have to print several trillions of euro to trade these petroleum(otherwise the deflation will destroy europe). Then, Greece hire all the leading construction companies to rebuild their country and buy what ever high tech/luxury things made in France/Germany to decorate their home Comparing these 2 cases, in the first one, Greece produced nothing, in the second one, Greece also produced nothing, but they find something others want. Most of people will accept case 2 but not case 1 Why? I guess down to the basic, it is about fairness or justice: If Greece can get free money and spend, why France and Germany can not? If anyone can just print money and do not need to work, then there will be no one making the real products, people will soon find out the money have nothing to purchase, then the monetary system will collapse But strangely, if Greece happened find lot's of petroleum, then no one will argue about it when they get same trillions of euro from ECB, although they still do not work, but now they have something that others want See? As long as you can provide something that others want, you will be fine. It seems this is the common sense when people are looking at economy related phenomenon, it also means: If you can not impress others with your products/services, you will have trouble So I think, the real problem of Greece now is that they can not provide something that impress others Why do people need to impress others with their products/services? I remember there is a chinese saying: In society, everyone is a beggar, the big beggar make big money and the small beggar make small money Is there any other better way? +1 Good points. Many generations of fiat money have deeply influenced us. 请给我们中文 |
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The interesting thing about this unedited and not well thought out paper is why it was written. It's not clear to me.
Perhaps they are fishing for a buyer.
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I won't defend economics as an actual science. It isn't.
There are two ways of doing economics. Empirically, like physics, or aprioristically, like math. I agree that it is not scientific to do economics empirically, because you simply cannot isolate all the buzillions variables involved, nor repeat your experiments enough times to get good samples. They actually can't even experiment. But economics can be done like math, using logically sound constructions on top of axioms. This works much better and it is scientific. A bit like astronomy then  |
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What is the currency of choice for drug dealers that you can buy coffee with too[/i]?
Is it now the Euro? I'm guessing the Euro. There are some caffeine addicted motherfuckers out there stuck with € to unload and I bet they pay a healthy premium on other drugs too. |
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Good stuff DrG I just sent you a bitcoin. I would love to see some very brief advice on how to search med. info in 2012, is PubMed king? Are there any decent AI chatterbot attempts at diagnosis? A few sites you recommend? Thanks. |
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Reading through this thread just proves that different people/situations prefer/require different payment methods.
I don't see why the existing credit card architectures couldn't also be used with bitcoin. I swipe my card, Discover tells the store I am legit and transaction is recorded on Discover's private servers. I take the shot of whisky put the card back in my velcro pocket and dive back into the surf. One month later if I didn't complain, Discover posts a TX to the merchant (minus fee) and sends me a bill (plus fee).
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I disagree. I would gladly pay MC a monthly fee and interest to give me a BTC credit line and the usual chargeback / contest charge / fraud prevention services.
Very scary thought. What would happen if someone charged $1,000 US worth of stuff on a credit card in April 2011 only to find out that when the bill arrived in May 2011 it was now $10,000 US? When it comes to borrowing money I will stick with fiat where the central banks are busy running "the printing press" and stay well away from hard forms of money such as Gold or Bitcoin. The only scary thoughts I see are those also present for any credit line. It will be interesting to see how fees / interest / insurance prices will develop. Clearly it's more advantageous to borrow money in an inflating currency; the terms of the lender will reflect that. Don't forget also debit card services if you are averse to credit. No matter how late they move in on the coinspace the major ccard players will have a great advantage with name recognition and existing infrastructure. |
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In Bitcoin the phrase "..of the people by the people and for the people." has meaning. Miners and those using Bitcoin are the authority. The world is full of corrupted currencies and history is replete with cases of governmental market manipulation and money corruption, decentralization is the cure.
History has also been a long road of citizens seeding power and influence to those who really crave it. Government, law, and the very character of this and other nations have been bent and broken piecemeal by those with the money to afford a voice.
Money is said to be the life blood of a society however would any of you allow the beating of your heart to be controlled by any democracy you know let alone an elite group of charlatans like those involved in the recent housing shenanigans, or governments that are clearly controlled by interests other than those of the general voter?
Everything is hard until it's easy, but Bitcoin was a long time in coming. I worked half a life time and saved like a mother fucker to have almost all of it taken by the faceless fucks who really control us, whether it's Bitcoin, Phatcoin, or the fucking Qubit I'm out of the Monopoly money game for good.
How can we sink so low as to imagine we dont have the right to determine value?
+1 |
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This is about valueation, and valueation is different for different entities
Case 1:
In an island with only 2 people, A capture 1 fish and B pickup 1 basket of fruits every day, and they both can not do the other's work, they will be happily exchange their daily products equally, it means the value of 1 fish equal to 1 basket of fruits
Case 2:
A capture 1 fish while B pick up 2 baskets of fruits every day, then the value of 1 fish will equal to 2 baskets of fruits, since fishes are difficult to get and fruits are easy to pick
But in real world, history price are critical, it means, if Case 1 happens before Case 2, then after B picked up 2 baskets of fruits, he will still be able to exchange 1 fish with 1 basket of fruits, and keep the rest 1 basket of fruits
This is more or less what happened in EU: Germany increased their productivity by 100%, but still keep the price of their products the same, while Greece still keep the original productivity. It means: Greece have to use 1 day's labor to exchange 1/2 days's labor from Germany. Given the same amount of loan, Greece worker have to work 10 hours to payback the loan, but Germany worker only need to work 5 hours
Somebody might ask: Why don't Greece also increase their productivity? In my opinion, they have the right to live a low productivity life, the person who give them a loan which is much higher than their productivity is the one to blame
-1, sorry. This is about fiat money. The stuff can be created in limitless quantities with no effort. Fruits and fish are not like that, so your analogy is a fail from the start. Try something like: A print 1 euro while B print 1 drachma. A print 10m euro and give to B, in exchange B agree to go live in Monaco and not print any more drachma. Old neighbors of B now fish and grow olives for A in exchange for newly printed euro. Economists say A very productive, in return these economists also can have some of the newly printed Euro. OK that needs a little work too but closer.  |
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Background:
The other night I wanted to roll a cigarette. I had tobacco but had run out of paper. I searched but couldn't find any papers lying around anywhere. Just now I tried to roll one soon after washing my hands. For those who don't know, damp fingers interfere with rolling the paper. In the past I have discarded these papers, even though they would probably be usable once again after they dry out. This time, I "automatically" (hey I should save this in case I run out of fresh ones) stored it away for future use without really thinking about it.
Hypothesis:
It is possible to increase the perceived value of an item/currency/whatever by causing people to go through periods where they do not have as much as they need/want at the moment.
Discussion:
I have heard stories of people who lived through the great depression becoming hoarders. Also, companies may purposefully limit the production of the first run of a new, highly hyped product. Is there evidence of governments trying to capitalize on this instinct to increase the perceived value of their currency? Does "panic buying" become more prevalent after a cycle of cheap-> expensive -> cheap?
Careful with the word, there's a well known psychological bug that bears the name. There's a TV show about it too. It refers to the inability to part with material possessions. IMHO this doesn't have much to do with artificial scarcity or the currency/commodity manipulations you describe. |
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Nice list How about adding: publicly verifiable money supply? There are some advantages to complete elimination of counterfeiting and other secret inflation. |
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