I understand the value of goods and services that are created, but at the end of the day, there is still not enough of the legal currency ($1.10) to pay back what is owed to the treasury. ($1.21).  The economy is very complicated and I still don't understand what you guys mean (artifact of the books?), but I don't want to risk alienating people by continuing the discussion further. I'm honestly not trying to be thick headed or closed minded. Thanks all for trying to explain it to me. |
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Problem Description
With mining pools getting bigger share of total network hashing power, threats such as single point of failure and >50% attack become more and more possible.
Right now the danger exists because pools are a relatively new idea and all the early adopters have chosen their favorite. As the number of pools grow, I think the chances of one pool getting >50% goes down... Pools are not like Walmart where they can just throw money and "sell at a loss" until their competition dies out. New pools form daily with different features. If one pool becomes very popular and starts attracting lots of members, there is nothing to stop other pools from using the same features and improving on them. New people are starting to mine every day, and they are not all going to flock to one pool like they did in the days where there were only a couple. In other terms, to get over 50%, a pool would have to attract more than one out of every two new users, which won't happen anymore with the current selection. |
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Jancsika, this is a neat general idea, although the king and castle and armies theme might limit its attractiveness... I don't think this particular cause will raise what you hope, but others may. You should consider creating a website for bitcoin donations based on something like this!  |
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My understanding after reading your post is that a plane ticket was bought using US Dollars.
BTC Economist, eventually most things must be converted to local currency at some point. The fact is I paid with bitcoin. You gave someone bitcoins, but the ticket wasn't purchased with those bitcoins. The conversion to local currency has to come after the purchase in order for the honor ( First airline ticket bought with bitcoin) to be relevant, imho. |
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I like the analogy of money being a measure of velocity instead of a inventory count. If there's only $1 in existence, but it get passed around between 10 people, $10 have been spent. i.e. the GDP isn't a measure of how many dollars there are, but of how many are spent.
OK, so $10 are spent, but there is still only that $1 in existence. How are you going to pay the $1.10 the treasury wants back if you only have that dollar - a shortage of $0.10? It can't be from income tax. If the second person had to pay $0.10 tax when he made that $1.00, then he would only have $0.90 to spend on the third person. There still is only the $1 in existence. So the second person has $0.90 and he wants to buy something for $1.00 off the third person. This is impossible unless the treasury releases another $0.10. Now there is $1.10 in existence but the treasury wants $1.21 back - a shortage of $0.11. |
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Like Tiago, I wish you good luck. However the odds are you will lose money in Las Vegas - if the odds were anything else, that city would not exist. |
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Explaining why Jafm is wrong to yourself is easy, the real trick is finding a way of convincing him.
Not really, I'm very open minded. I've presented my simple argument and no one has yet presented a counter argument to show where I could be wrong.  (BTW I don't consider "you're wrong!" to be a convincing argument) You said it best - " Are you imagining dollars as debt that has to "paid back", and an expanding economy as a disruption of the balance sheet between dollars created and dollars owed?". That is how I see it... is that wrong? |
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If it looks like a scam and smells like a scam.......
Doesn't have to be a scam at all! Let's say you complete an offer that nets the site $1.00. They give you $0.50 worth of bitcoins and $0.10 (20%) worth of bitcoins to the person that referred you. The site keeps $0.40. There are thousands of offers like this: http://www.cj.com/ |
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WHERE IS YOUR MATH SIR?
I asked you a simple question.
Sorry about that. $100 <-- USD in existence -$110 <-- USD owed to treasury ------ ($10) <-- Debt that cannot be paid off. |
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Can you show us your work, or atleast the source who is claiming that these debts can never be paid back?
Can we agree that the US Treasury creates all the currency that is in use for the United States? Can we also agree that that money was lent out to the government with interest? If so, what work do I need to show? If all the money I have to pay off a debt is $100, and I owe $110, how can I pay the debt ever? |
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You're wrong. You are using some preatty fuzzy math to say the least.
All money in the US economy came from the treasury, and it was lent out with interest. The debt can never be paid back in full - mathematically impossible. |
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actually our taxes are 14.4% of our gdp currently. That wiki uses old data.There is not enough money in the US (real or virtual) to pay off the US debt, nor will there ever be. Every day that shortage grows. dont know where you got that info.. so you want to claim we didnt have a surplus in 2000 and that everyone is lying but right wing sites? You want to claim we didnt have a projected surplus of 5 trillion over ten years? want to claim the republican lead cbo ddnt complain that the bush tax cuts destroyed 1/2 of that? or do you want to claim it was all dot com when our economy has grown by 40% since 2000? It may not happen in our lifetimes, but eventually the interest payments alone will be more than the entire GNP of the country. this is the only thing I can come close to agreeing with, right now interest is our 3rd biggest payment and if we didnt address the debt, it very well can rise higher than our gnp. It is actually predicted to be our biggest payment within 10 years. But anyone who tells you we cant pay off our debt ever, or that their isnt enough money in the us to do so, is blowing smoke up your asss and hopes you have a memory that doesnt go back to 2000 Having a surplus means you took in more money than you spent during the single reporting period. If the economy grows by 40%, it's in part to the treasury printing more money and lending it out with interest. Very simply, if I have the only dollar in the world, and I give it to you and ask for $1.10 back, there is not enough money in the world to pay off what you owe. Don't believe me - go read any financial website on FIAT currencies, or watch the movie I recommended at the start of the thread. All the sources are listed. |
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"A Ponzi scheme is a fraudulent investment operation that pays returns to separate investors, not from any actual profit earned by the organization, but from their own money or money paid by subsequent investors."
" Subsequent" is the key word. Once you stop getting new investors, a Ponzi scheme will collapse, even if every single person in the world has taken part. Bitcoin is not like that. Once it matures and finds its place, it will not need any new influx of coins or users to keep it running or keep it valued. |
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b) Money inherently is a Ponzi scheme whether it be Fiat(USD) or pseudo-fiat(Bitcoin). They all derive their value from the # of people willing to use and accept it whether as currency or just a method of wealth storage.
That is not even close to the definition of a Ponzi. A simple definition would be using today's money to pay yesterday's bills. Bitcoin is not a Ponzi, although money (USD) is. |
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Not everything is a ponzi scheme. Every since Bernie Madoff, everything is a ponzi scheme. Seriously, I've broken enough keyboards, don't get me banging my head again
Just because everything is not a Ponzi scheme, does not mean the US economy isn't. A Ponzi scheme uses new money to pay off old debts - that is what the US treasury does. There is not enough money in the US (real or virtual) to pay off the US debt, nor will there ever be. Every day that shortage grows. For each billion dollars the treasury makes (the only source of money), it asks for 1.x billion back, with x being the interest rate. Where does that x money come from? By making more money and widening the gap. Yes, the US will eventually go bankrupt - it is an absolute mathematical inevitability. It may not happen in our lifetimes, but eventually the interest payments alone will be more than the entire GNP of the country. |
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NASA had it's time, but private industry is ready to take over in space.
NASA still has its place. There is no profit in locating near earth objects, unless you sell doomsday bunkers. |
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I'm all for drastically reducing the amount of money we waste on welfare and NASA and foreign aid but for now we pay what we owe.
The US spends less on NASA than they do on air conditioning in the middle east. |
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The United States MUST go bankrupt eventually - it was inevitable once your treasury issued $1 and demanded more than that $1 back (interest). It's the world's largest ponzi scheme - making new money to pay interest on the old. But I agree with Timm that a deal will be reached last minute that will raise the debt limit. An excellent movie explaining this is here: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1503769/ |
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I think women are smarter than men NOW.
Then by all means you should act on that. On your forum, have each user declare their gender, and give females a higher reward for posting. Maybe us male drones could contribute some of our earnings to their pool as a "thank you" for putting up with our stupidity. |
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I believe women can do amazing things, and are actually intellectually superior to men, with every study proving it.
Well, there goes the equal rights movement.  It's the truth bud , just look at their enrollment rates compared to ours.. http://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=98So you believe women were less intelligent than men until around 1978 or so, at which time they surpassed us, and they continue to grow in intellectual superiority? Does that mean a few hundred years ago, when women were not allowed in universities, they had no intelligence at all? How did this miraculous evolution take place so quickly? |
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