Lol, who mentioned "prepper", only you.
Why shouldn't he mention it? Why do you laugh when he does? I'm sorry, I realize how that might have come over as confrontational. I just think the term is negatively loaded, it causes emotional responses. Preparing for a possibility (risk assessment) is very different from preparing for a certainty. Many people think anyone holding a little silver or gold is a crazy paranoid "prepper", but that's not the case, people have used it as a store of wealth for millennia, it's proven to be a very robust wealth store, to that there is no argument. "Gold bugs" are also thought to be a little crazy in all popular media etc. This notion I assume is spread as a cheap way to apply downward pressure to metals in order to hide real inflation rates. |
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I few months ago, I watched a friend encounter the downsides of gold first hand.
He was moving internationally and had absolutely no way to move the amount of gold he had with him.
Long story short, he sold all his gold for bitcoins, and had absolutely no trouble taking the bitcoins with him.
He could have sold before travelling and purchased after he arrived. Yes, bitcoin would be the best tool to do that. As far as the prepper argument goes,
Lol, who mentioned "prepper", only you. I'm pretty sure that any natural disaster that takes down the internet will destroy the entire concept of a money economy in entirely, so gold will be just as useless as bitcoins.
Really, you think that? Do you have any historical event that you can reference where such a thing has happened: unrest or disaster causing a permanent fall in golds buying power? In the context of collapse, I agree 2 days after a collapse is not the best time to try and liquidate metal, but it will retain it's worth until stability reforms. The same cannot be said for most other non perishables of modest physical volume. Why do you think central banks covet gold if it's so useless? If you want to prep for that kind of situation, the physical goods you want to hoard aren't gold.
As you mention "prepping"... Risk analysis would say the best strategy is to fully hedge, anyone all in gold or all in bitcoin or bullets or beans is not optimally hedged. Out of interest: Say you were given the task of designing a portfolio to survive 1000 years, what would it be comprised of? |
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HI,
Sorry I did missed this.
Will be fixed Monday
Regards: Vesi
OK, thx vesi! |
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If there is a bitcoin central bank, then there should be a Bitcoin Central Bank governing body, which I dont like.
Exactly, you can't have one without the other. Bitcoin central bank is a terrible idea. Bitcoin already is the perfect bank, distributed amongst the people. If one person wants to lend to another at interest that's cool, but we don't need a central bank. |
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The notion that they are competing against each other is silly Not silly to anyone who understand the concept of opportunity cost. I agree Gold and BTC serve the same purpose and yes by expending some time you may convince some usual gold purchasers to purchase bitcoin. But I think your time investment would yield a higher return if you convinced people to turn against less sound investments, because there sure as hell are plenty of them out there. This would drive both Gold and BTC up. I also think a fully hedged portfolio should be lined with Gold, you must admit bitcoin carries more risk than Gold. Bitcoin requires a working internet, Gold only requires a hand to hold it. There is room for both Gold and Bitcoin in a sound portfolio. |
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Why do people hate on gold so much... oh I worked it out, because they've been persuaded to by people who like to covet the physical gold. DOH! Let's look at the 10 yr gold chart...  Strong support forming at 1200, not bad, gold stays afloat rather well considering all the market manipulation happening: http://www.gata.org/Gold and Bitcoin are very similar. The notion that they are competing against each other is silly, they compliment each other and they have a common enemy, that being imaginary money (fiat) which undergoes constant debasement. Did we all forget the $16 Trillion bank bailouts of 2008? $16 Trillion printed out of thin air caused YOUR dollars to be worth less. |
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Okay.. Where can I buy that big amount sir? I mean I know where to buy, but can I be assured that its a safe place to buy it? Where do you buy yours? I certainly can not sell it to you so much Bitcoin once, in fact, when you buy bitcoins in exchange, it's not completed an order from one only. for example, if I buy 50 bitcoin on LakeBTC, probably 5 btc from A, 20 btc from B, and others from C D E F G... as long as their ask match with my bid. This is essence of Exchange; to buy bitcoins in a place that called Changer. Agree with you, Exchanges should not be involved in the trade, so Coinbase, BitInstant etc they are not Exchange, that's why their fee is more expensive. Any trade mechanism IS an exchange mechanism, be it local bitcoins or an online exchange. The mechanism is simple... buyers meet sellers in a free market. Just log into the various exchanges and check out their fee schedule, you will see some have fixed fees, some have tiered fees where the more fiat equivalent you trade the lower the trade fee is. Some have no trade fees. Buying using local bitcoins is relatively expensive, you have to pay for the sellers time, transport and then perhaps a little more, which is fair enough, the free market has found the price in this scenario. If you want to make a little income then buy any amount of bitcoin on a zero fee exchange and sell them on local bitcoins. "Bulk" purchase will get you no discount in this case because it's zero fee to purchase anyway. In fact if you want to log into exchange and buy 50 btc with one click then you will pay a higher purchase rate than buying 1 btc because your order will have to go a little further down the order book to be completely filled. |
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The money does exist in the form of an asset (accounts receivable - loans).
No, you are incorrect, when a bank issues a loan that money does NOT exist until it has been repaid. The debtor will have to sell his labor or other assets to raise the money for repayment. There is no guarantee that it will be repaid, it is a gamble. What does exist is an abstract token of the real money, this is the loan itself. I realise that the interest on the loan should cover associated risks when things are running well, but when things don't run so well you can end up with an avalanche of failure and a hell of a lot of bag holders, history has shown this to be so. over $16 trillion was allocated to corporations and banks internationally, purportedly for “financial assistance” during and after the 2008 fiscal crisis. Talk of QE Tapering, means next time the safety net may not be quite as resilient, if present at all. |
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In your example: When "bank loans 90 BTC to customer B" those can only be tokens representing BTC.
Why must an token be loaned? The bank has 100 BTC. It loans 90 of it. It doesn't need to lend out a token. The banks rely on the fact that loans are eventually redeposited into the banking system. This fact allows banks to lend out as much money as they do. The banks should have enough assets (both cash and money owed to them - loans) to cover all their liabilities (deposits) at any given time I like that you wrote "should"... you know the score deep down  The account balance you see in your bank account IS a token amount, it isn't real money yet, because 90% of that money exists in the form of unpaid debts, most of this 90% new money does not even exist as deposits in said bank, most account holders have it out in the real world paying for real stuff. If everyone at Bank_X logs into their account and queries their "available balance" then that value presented on screen IS a token, because it's NOT available to everyone viewing the balance, this is a fact. As an example: If every user of Bank_X wanted to withdraw at the same time then they many would realize that the number representing their bank balance was a token, representing money that may (or may not) be deposited into the bank in the future. If only ~10% tried to withdraw at once then the remaining ~90% would have to wait until the future loan repayments hopefully trickled in. Of course in reality all banks club together to cover each others asses to prevent a "run on the bank". The recent spate of banking bailouts have proven just how brittle and fragile some FRB banks are becoming, even the buddy system mentioned above failed. It needed government to step in and order the printing of new money at the expense of every holder of said money. If you held said money at the time or expect it as a wage in the future then YOU paid for the fuck up! If you can climb a ladder faster than the platform to which it is attached is falling then you will appear to make headway, but the final result is inevitable. A money and banking system with no fixed base is exactly this, the foundation for the dollar was destroyed in 1971, history has shown that EVERY money system that goes fiat ALWAYS fails. We are witnessing the end times here, most of the liabilities are being pushed into the future, into the derivatives market. The final crash will be blamed on some "natural" disaster, but remember it was planned all along, bankers aren't stupid or incompetent, they KNOW their game make no mistake, been playing it for MANY generations. P.S. don't worry, it's not the end of the world, it's happened many times before. The money does exist in the form of an asset (accounts receivable - loans). If the bank was prudent in underwriting their loans and took on an appropriate amount of risk then the NPV of the assets held in addition to cash will be positive (meaning the value of the loan is more then the amount lent - meaning if the bank had to sell the loan they would realize a profit). The reason that banks are able to lend out ~90% of their deposits (they actually lend out much less today due to lack of demand for quality loans) is because depositors do not need to spend their money at any given time. The bold part is a statistical assumption and is correct (for the majority of the time). The probability of it being correct is dropping over time ( are you aware of the recent bank bail-outs? ). FRB turns that assumption into the fact: More than 10% of depositors can NOT spend their money at any given time.The last safety net is government intervention (bail outs) which entails everybody else (holders of fiat) picking up the tab (inflation). Myself, I don't think a pyramid scheme makes for a fair and sound banking system, but to each their own. EDIT: Banks use all spare reserves above requirement to play the markets, all money above reserve requirements is tied up. |
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So we find ourselves living in an idiocracy, great  Bitcoin serves every purpose needed for a global trade currency, but it seems only a few people realize that. The powers that be will always say inflation/deflation controls are needed, of course they are not, the free market will run just fine on a finely divisible secure money like bitcoin, just as it did on gold in the past. I suspect that a fractional reserve system on top of bitcoin may happen before a full fiat. Bretton woods with bitcoin. A stepping stone move if you will. If that's the case then I just hope regular people will still be allowed to transact with the raw blockchain if they wish. Thinking about it... how come nobody has developed a fractional reserve layer over bitcoin yet? Like pirate40s scheme only not centralized, but P2P. Oh wait I just worked it out... because the "available funds" in each account would have to be honest, i.e. only 10% of what you deposited in there, the rest being tied up in loans to others that may or may not be paid back in the future, nah that wouldn't fly without centralized regulation by a large org with a good militia. ho hum. |
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For those who want a decentralized, trustless, gold backed digital currency
What.. ...You will always be able to exchange one bitgld for one ounce of real gold. Similar to how this was supposed to always be redeemable for real gold?  ...that is, until the guys in charge of the gold vault said they weren't gonna do that anymore. Yup all systems based on trust tend to creep that way in the end, human nature I suppose. |
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For those who want a decentralized, trustless, gold backed digital currency
What.. Like i said it is the closest you are going to get. You will always probably be able to exchange one bitgld for one ounce of real gold. Fixed it for you. |
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To those that understand what money is: cryptofiat is as useful as a crotchless chastity belt, some fuckery is going to go on... GUARANTEED!
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cryptofiat... I must say it does make me chuckle. It's like constructing the ultimate massive safe matrix out of 6 inch hardened steel plate, each user has their own little safe cell and key, a tremendous feat of engineering! And then someone ( a banker of course ) has the smart idea of putting a little hinged wooden back door in each safe cell that get's locked with a bike combination lock, you gotta laugh!  That's what the people would be doing... entrusting their labor, their resources and their time, to a few that knew the combo. Of course it would be trivial to crack the combos or break the little wooden doors, that is if you could gain access to the back of the safe past the armed guard needed to watch over such shitty locks. |
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The collapse of Mt. Gox has great implications on the Bitcoin world. It shakes many people’s confidence in exchanges and security of the digital currency. Inevitably this has been factored into the price levels and employed by many Bitcoin critics – it is arguable that the psychological cost is even higher than the lost bitcoins.
the thing that Collapse of Mt. Gox has great implications on the Bitcoin world,not only a bad thing,but also a positive thing,It told us the importance of safety about BITCOIN. I agree, and also the good ship Bitcoin has sailed through a severe storm, if it can make it through that then it can make it through anything! |
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In your example: When "bank loans 90 BTC to customer B" those can only be tokens representing BTC.
Why must an token be loaned? The bank has 100 BTC. It loans 90 of it. It doesn't need to lend out a token. The banks rely on the fact that loans are eventually redeposited into the banking system. This fact allows banks to lend out as much money as they do. The banks should have enough assets (both cash and money owed to them - loans) to cover all their liabilities (deposits) at any given time I like that you wrote "should"... you know the score deep down The account balance you see in your bank account IS a token amount, it isn't real money yet, because 90% of that money exists in the form of unpaid debts, most of this 90% new money does not even exist as deposits in said bank, most account holders have it out in the real world paying for real stuff. If everyone at Bank_X logs into their account and queries their "available balance" then that value presented on screen IS a token, because it's NOT available to everyone viewing the balance, this is a fact. As an example: If every user of Bank_X wanted to withdraw at the same time then they many would realize that the number representing their bank balance was a token, representing money that may (or may not) be deposited into the bank in the future. If only ~10% tried to withdraw at once then the remaining ~90% would have to wait until the future loan repayments hopefully trickled in. Of course in reality all banks club together to cover each others asses to prevent a "run on the bank". The recent spate of banking bailouts have proven just how brittle and fragile some FRB banks are becoming, even the buddy system mentioned above failed. It needed government to step in and order the printing of new money at the expense of every holder of said money. If you held said money at the time or expect it as a wage in the future then YOU paid for the fuck up! If you can climb a ladder faster than the platform to which it is attached is falling then you will appear to make headway, but the final result is inevitable. A money and banking system with no fixed base is exactly this, the foundation for the dollar was destroyed in 1971, history has shown that EVERY money system that goes fiat ALWAYS fails. We are witnessing the end times here, most of the liabilities are being pushed into the future, into the derivatives market. The final crash will be blamed on some "natural" disaster, but remember it was planned all along, bankers aren't stupid or incompetent, they KNOW their game make no mistake, been playing it for MANY generations. P.S. don't worry, it's not the end of the world, it's happened many times before. |
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World reserve currencies come and go, things change. This thread title is "Re: US National Debt / Deficit - How does it end?", here's one possible scenario, I think it makes for better reading/conversation than "It never ends". I believe the wars never finished, we are still in the cold war era, the game will continue until a winner is found. For a competing nation to trash the USD; it would cost that nation for sure, all the labor/resources they expended to collect those USD and bonds would vanish into nothingness in the blink of an eye. If America enters a hot war against a large nation then they KNOW that nation would dump all US securities, obviously they would do that as a person fighting with you has no intention of repaying their debts to you. A global polarization would occur involving both currencies of the nations involved, the USA would soon be in a bad way on the economic global stage, they'd still be in fairly good shape with regard to resources and labor force though. America cannot harm the Russian RUB, but Russia (certainly with the help of China) can kill the USD, this is simply the math of the situation because America has far more external debt as a percentage of GDP than Russia or China (the have written more IOUs). I think we can all agree that US/Russia relations are quite tense at the moment, what with the recent trade sanctions imposed upon Russia etc. I find Americas recent move of disconnecting Russia from the SWIFT system as a worrying sign for the USD, it seems as if America is not afraid of conflict and thus not afraid of the USD crashing. If america pre-empts hot war (they are acting like the are) then they will crash their own USD, strategically it is correct to do that before the war goes hot, otherwise you'd have two shitstorms to contend with. |
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it doesn't end. what is the incentive for ending it.
LOL.. Perfectly said. It doesnt end, it will grow and grow. Yes. Right now USA economy is in rising, so their debt should decrease. How many it decreased from 2010 to 2014? not decreased, risen: Federal debt held by the public as a percentage of gross domestic product, from 1790 to 2013, projected to 2038.  The federal debt burden as a percentage of GDP will decrease as long as the economy is rising faster then the deficit (as measured by percentage of GDP). The problem is that Obama has demanded that we see higher spending levels, especially on welfare-like programs, which has resulted in higher overall debt levels. As a more conservative president is elected, we will see much more prudent fiscal policies which should result in lower debt levels Elections exist only to give voters the illusion of choice, and to give the world the illusion of a progressive system. But The people who make important decisions are not swapped out, it would be a foolish strategy to swap out real government (military and finance) every few years. If a president ever tries to exert their own control and deviates from the script then he will be murdered. As happened to JFK after he tried to throw a spanner in the private bank corp known as the FED. Obama makes no decisions, he's just a relatively good public speaker, put in place so that Africa warms to America. Africa is next on the US TODO list. Besides that... unlimited ecenomic expansion, yes that's what's required to keep a debt based money afloat, but that is impossible to achieve as the world is a finite place. |
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They'll always need something or someone to blame. Next it's ISIS, Putin, Iran, China, WWIII, Aliens, whatever. I hate people who don't assume responsibility for the shit they do. If you're enslaving the world using a fiat money ponzi scheme and colluding with corrupt politicians to take everyones freedom away, at least be proud of it and admit it. Damned straight! |
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In your example: When "bank loans 90 BTC to customer B" those can only be tokens representing BTC.
Why must an token be loaned? The bank has 100 BTC. It loans 90 of it. If that were the case then the banks reserve would fall to 10 BTC after the loan were issued, and it would be a vanilla central bank, AKA a FRB in idle mode running 1:1 reserves. In FRB, as per your example, the banks 100BTC reserve remains mostly untouched, only a token of account is lent out. This is where they hide the scam, the token issuance happens at the time the loan is created. Just sufficiently obfuscated enough to bamboozle many folk. In FRB as you know, with a 10:1 ratio then the bank is fucked if >10% of account holders want to withdraw their asset holdings. When they withdraw they are swapping their tokens for real assets. >10% try and swap at once and the bank is revealed to be a giant scam just like the Pirate40 fiasco. In reality it will be fucked if >~7% try and withdraw because the bank managers already spent coins on ho's and shit. The balance you see in your bank account is a token value, divide it by 10, that's how much "real" cash the bank is holding for us all. And that cash nowadays is fiat money, that's shittiness to the power of 2! |
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