Is it not in the interest of every living thing in the whole world for the value of a US dollar to be recognized as nil as soon as possible?
Of course not. I actually own 0 USD at the moment, so I wouldn't be DIRECTLY affected, but what do you think would happen to the world economy if USD suddenly became worthless? It would go haywire. You would NOT benefit from it, and neither would anyone else. But do you really think that people would want to lose all of their life savings just so that the world has no USD debt? That is the stupidest thought ever. First of all, nobody has *all* their life savings as USD. It just isn't possible. Most of the value we can draw on is social connections, skills, of course food clothing and shelter, and we haven't even gotten to standard investments like stocks yet or things like coin, gold, cars, furniture, children, books, etc. Valuing something that costs zero to create is, to put it tactfully, not very bright, and most certainly has caused things to go totally haywire. Ending that nonsense will be ending the haywire, perhaps even people will act a bit more sanely? I know that sounds impossible now but I think in the future it will become more of a requisite. The way I see it even those who are heads of fiat producing cartels will benefit in terms of their productivity and enjoyment of life, and of course they will still be the richest. Sure the value of their London properties might go down a tad but hey.. these folks know EXACTLY why they shouldn't be keeping much value in fiat balances. |
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kk, thanks Erdogan et al. and my apologies for inane posts. It helped me solidify definitions, so not entirely useless  |
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Bitcoin's killer application is to give a chance to the people of under developed countries to the ban services. What am I talking about?
Well there is more than 3 and a half billion people who don't have a bank account in the world and who don't live anywhere close to the bank. With a simple and cheap phone, with the Bitcoin miracles can be done.
I mean look at Mpesa in Kenya and the success of it. Bitcoin can be next Mpesa, just hundred times bigger!
Tell that to those persons that are opposed to raising the block size and instead raising the minimum fee. The bitcoin they want would be for the rich. I agree, bitcoin needs to be a chance for many that are forgotten by the current system. Wait, some people think that rich people will be the ones that have the money? |
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I got connections but not downloading blocks ........... restarted wallet but still there is problem....
Connected yet? You may have to try using "addnode" manually with one of the nodes listed in the thread above. Please post if you are still having problems, thanks! |
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Let me try: A barter economy is where usable goods are traded for usable goods, and where no commodity is preferred in trade due to its liquidity.
Sounded good at first, however, how can no commodity be preferred? Suppose, you have a lot of rice and that is your preferred commodity. Now, ditch the rice. Something else is now preferred, maybe wheat or rice basket or cigarettes. Whatever you have the most of, and are most willing to part with, is the money. That's Gresham's law. If the warden cracks down on cigarettes, what will be the preferred commodity for trade now? Handjobs? There will always be a most-liquid asset for any individual. The distinction between barter and trade is a qualitative one, in that the former implies smaller scale, and more haggling. Otherwise, no difference. |
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Thanks for your replies, they are helpful.
I see that what we have here is a literary construction similar to how the word "animal" is used. That is, sometimes the word is used to the exclusion of human beings. Not that anyone for one second imagines that homo sapiens are actually plants or funguses, but rather - that is just a shorthand of speech, that "animal" can mean "non-human animal".
Similarly, we have established that trade or barter for exchange commodities, i.e. monies, is in fact barter, however that the term "barter" itself can often mean "non-exchange-commodity barter".
Consider: an animal which wears clothes and plays Bach is not an animal. Barter for an exchange commodity is not barter.
So now lets consider the question of the "barter economy". What could this mean? I'm not sure it is a meaningful distinction in the OP subject. In fact, I dislike the literary short of hand I have just described. Lets avoid it.
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Lets take a step back.
I want some of your apples. You don't want to just give a few to me. So, I look around through my bag for something to trade. I find some old shells, you agree to a trade.
Is this barter?
Now, assume that I call these shells "money". Is this barter?
Isn't money just a commonly bartered commodity?
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Bitcoin has its work cut out for it. It will not be an easy journey replacing our archaic monetary systems. Powerful institutions have not taken it seriously yet and when they do, lets hope its too late to stop the btc rebellion.
But I don't think the powerful institutions will so easily will accept to consider BTC as a official currency. The reason is simple they want track all the transactions but with btc it is almost impossible or quite challenging. ?? lol, with btc it's easier than ever to track all transactions. That's the point really, that's why it's unforgeable. At same time you can hide your identity in bitcoin transactions correct? - but institutions do not want to do that. The Bitcoin is a system no one will come to know about the payment or about all other info related to the payment, including who sent it, who received it, etc. One can always try to hide one's various identities. It's just a little bit harder to do that with bitcoin than it was with gold or fiat, probably not that much harder really. This is basically a trivial aside of little import. The main issue is forgeability and counterfeitability and seignorage. That's the raison d'etre for public coin. |
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If the value of a dollar is positive, and the total number of dollars is negative, then the total value of all dollars is negative.
Is there a total negative number of dollars in the world?
If so, then maybe everyone should put them in the garbage since the total value in the world would be higher, if their total value is actually negative.
The problem is that the US has a large 'negative' number of US dollars, while the rest of the world has a 'positive' number. So what you suggest would only help the US government, while punishing foreign governments. Not in the best interest of the whole world, is it? Is it not in the interest of every living thing in the whole world for the value of a US dollar to be recognized as nil as soon as possible? |
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but with money you can exchange anything,
However there is no -guarantee- of a willing exchanger for any good, no matter whether you choose to call that good money or not. How is this not obvious? Each fiat money is a guarantee of exchanging any good in that specific country, I would like to see the future where people refuse to accept their domestic fiat money because it is created out of nothing, but that is not the case right now, 99% of people (including many famous entrepreneurs) have zero knowledge about fiat money, they are all playing the bank's fiat money game without understanding how the game is designed Thanks for your reply. OK then, 20$ for your daughter. Guaranteed you said. JK of course. First of all whether the cost of production of the currency is zero (definition of fiat) or not doesn't matter. There is NEVER a guarantee that anybody will trade you anything for anything else. Even legal tender laws only disincentivise folks to accept a given tender as repayment of debts, not as trade for whatever thing you might be interested in.
the liquidity preference is different. If you produce 5x more iron ore, most likely the price will crash to 1/5, but FED has proved that printing 5x more USD will not affect its value
?? I'm not sure I follow you here. We don't know how much USD has been issued, nobody does. All we know is since the FED took over the value of a USD has dropped to well under 1% of its previous value vs. gold or oil or housing or food or clothing. Yes, USD has dropped 99% of its value since 100 years ago, but the USD supply has increased much more than 1000 times, so the value does not drop enough fast with the supply. 99% of people are short sighted, if a currency drops in value by even 5% per year, most of the people just don't care, as long as their income is enough to deal with the living expense. They maybe complain the rising living cost, but they won't take any action. Only Zimbabwe-like hyperinflation that increase the money supply by 10 fold in a month will cause a currency to fail I'm curious why you are so confident that the USD supply has increased so much more than it's market value would imply. For me, I have no information about the USD supply other than what markets tell me. Yes I am aware that markets are delayed in their reaction to printing events, so in general your hypothesis is in the right direction, but as to the factor concerned - I am ignorant. |
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BenRayfield,
Looking at the bank loan-to-deposit ratio, if that is more than 1.000 then there are more loans out than deposits. The last time I looked it was about 9 for the US $.
Disregarding all of the "negative dollars" in the world is to "default" on all mortgages, business loans, bank overdrafts ...
Spenders with a big debt, and the boss of the Greek Traffic Wardens' department, would be very happy. Retired Greek Traffic Wardens would not be happy, because their pension is entirely comprised of negative nonsense which someone promised to pay them in future. Savers would be downgraded to junk bond holders, and there would be no reward for a lifetime of prudent living within your means and working hard to pay for what you consume. The wasters would probably have a big party with loud music, flashing lights, leave the place with needles and excrement all over the floor, and when sent the bill say that it violates their human rights to be expected to pay for the damage.
Well if the only goods saved are foregeable notes, we have hardly to expect a reward for this lifetime of "prudent living". Indeed, how is it "prudent" to expect a corrupt institution to look after your families finances? |
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In what situations is a barter economy better than a monetary economy?
In all situations with no exception, a barter transaction is more direct and better to all involved parties. Unfortunately it's often slower and more involved and the lazy option is to use a monetary token and accept the loss in efficiency. Keep in mind that the question is about a barter economy and not a barter transaction. A barter economy is one in which there is no money. If you have a job in a barter economy, you are going to be paid in chickens or cabbages or coal, or whatever. You will have to pay your phone bill with chickens or cabbages or coal, or whatever, though I don't believe a barter economy could even support a phone system. Well you haven't thought about it very hard then. Whether you call a particular commodity "money" is up to you. Typically we refer to those commodities we are most likely to part with as "monies", as defined by Gresham's law. Now can you tell us please how whether you like to call your tradeable commodities "money" or not has any influence on a phone system. |
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you can't exchange iron ore for anything else except money,
Who is going to stop me? We trade what we like, that is a fact.
but with money you can exchange anything,
However there is no -guarantee- of a willing exchanger for any good, no matter whether you choose to call that good money or not. How is this not obvious?
the liquidity preference is different. If you produce 5x more iron ore, most likely the price will crash to 1/5, but FED has proved that printing 5x more USD will not affect its value
?? I'm not sure I follow you here. We don't know how much USD has been issued, nobody does. All we know is since the FED took over the value of a USD has dropped to well under 1% of its previous value vs. gold or oil or housing or food or clothing.
The demand for money can be driven by many psychological cause, most notably purchasing of high valued goods and building a safety net for future. Nothing prevent everyone from accumulating 1 billion dollar and do nothing with those money: A large amount of reserve just increase the feeling of safety dramatically and positively affect their mental status, even most of the consumptions in today's life is already enough good and cheap
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The talking heads will milk the publicity as long as they can and pretend that they are relevant to people's finances.
They aren't relevant in the least. People who wish to be independent and hold assets will do so and don't care about "Greece" or "The EU" or where some idiots drew lines on a map long ago.
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It's hard to find the total amount of dollar, it's not like there's a chart showing the market cap hanging everywhere.
Search for "M0 USD" you will find plenty of charts and people making up nice numbers. However, none of these are public and verifiable like they are for bitcoin. |
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In what situations is a barter economy better than a monetary economy?
In all situations with no exception, a barter transaction is more direct and better to all involved parties. Unfortunately it's often slower and more involved and the lazy option is to use a monetary token and accept the loss in efficiency. |
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Greece’s economy will suffer fresh damage from the austerity measures demanded by its creditors and will remain stuck in permanent depression unless it receives substantial debt relief, one of the UK’s leading thinktanks has warned. The National Institute of Economic and Social Research said the increases in VAT reluctantly accepted by the Syriza-led coalition in Athens in exchange for a new bail out will result in a 1% fall in national output in 2016. In its quarterly analysis of the state of the global economy, NIESR said that by the time the Greek economy stops contracting in the middle of next year, gross domestic product would be 30% lower than at the start of the crisis in 2010 and 7% lower than when the country joined the single currency in 2001. The report was published following a second day of heavy selling of bank shares on the Athens stock market. On Monday five shares comprising the banking index – National Bank of Greece, Alpha Bank, Piraeus Bank, Attica Bank and Eurobank – suffered double-digit losses, including three over the 30% limit that triggered an automatic trading suspension. The same group again suffered losses near the 30% level on Tuesday, with trading in Piraeus Bank shares suspended. However, after falling by a sixth on Monday, the main Greek stock market index had a steadier day as it posted a decline of just over 1%. Banks have been hit hard by a combination of a poorly performing economy, deposit flight, the rising number of non-performing loans and the capital controls introduced by the Greek government in late June. Shares in banks have lost half their value in the past two days and two thirds of their value since Syriza’s general election victory in January. Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/aug/05/niesr-warns-on-further-greek-austerityThe "National Institute of Economic and Social Research" lies deep in the heart of fiat mordor and a large fraction of it's members believe virtual currencies infinitely counterfeitable and redeemable for pictures of the queen represent the totality of their purpose. These poor folks need all the help they can get. I would like to personally call on all my friends and colleagues in Greece to pool resources for these folks who are more than likely in a permanent depression. |
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"Somos todos Americanos" - Simon Bolivar
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Lets phrase this question another way. Could money be used to make payments?
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The only prominent reason why the world is forced to value US is because it is the currency used to buy petrol, no other currency could be used in exchange, its called petrodollar. The reason why US is still considered to be the #1 country in the world is solely because they are widely involved in global exchanges, they have a strong military army and nice allies for resources. That's the reason why dollar is where it is.
Nonsense, all of that. To address the OP, one could of course look at published M0 numbers, for a traditional answer of a few trillion or so. However, we have another method here to estimate M0. Take the inverse of the highest price ever to be paid for a USD (they currently sell for a few millies), multiply it by 21 million, and you will have your estimate. |
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