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6221  Economy / Economics / Re: USA Debt Repayable on: May 13, 2013, 05:30:33 PM
Hi guys

Is USA debt repayable? Or are governments just hiding the truth - that infact western governments can never repay their debts, and that eventually sovereign bonds will collapse.

Does anyone actually have an answer to this? Is USA government heading down a road of responsible payback of its debt, or a road of full-on Keynesianism that will eventually lead to financial catastrophe.

I know that it would be in government's interest to hide the fact that debt was , at current economic growth rates , unrepayable. But I just want to know the truth. Lets assume USA economy continues to grow at current rate and deficit continues to grow/shrink at current rate. Where are we in 10 years? Is the debt repaid, halved or has it grown more?

Side question - If the debt is repayable, panic over. If it's not, how long will it take for markets to reflect this. Also - If anyone has some numbers, all the better.

Cheers

 Grin

Of course it's repayable.

But it requires printing which is going to be politically and socially unacceptable.  Not least because then confidence will be lost in the currency, and top down printing is rarely well distributed.

Debts that cant be paid wont be paid.  There will be haircuts ... the only question is who will be left standing when the music stops .... sadly, it's often the weakest in society ...



Printing is the easiest haircut possible.  A default would mean:
a) The biggest losers would be Americans.  Most debt is owned by Americans and a huge chunk of that is private pension funds.
b) New debt would be essentially impossible.  That would force a "balanced budget" by defacto.
c) Simply cutoff social security (no reduction in payments, no adjusting eligibility, the checks just stop forever) or raise real taxes massively (something on the order of doubling taxes for all brackets with no exemptions).

A haircut would be an instant implosion of the government as we know it today.  A devaluation means robbing people slowly over time.   The difference between a car out of control at 100 mph and no brakes coasting to a stop once it runs out of gas or smashing into a wall with throttle wide open.

So if a country like the US can't pay its debt in "good faith" (i.e. no honoring the letter of the contract and devaluing the value of the returned payments given the choice of a default or a devaluation the choice is clear.  If you think the US government will "default" on its debts the more likely scenario is above average inflation over the next couple decades as money supply growth makes that dollar denominated debt worth less and less until it can pay it.  Make sure your financial choices reflect that scenario.
6222  Bitcoin / Bitcoin Discussion / Re: WARNING! Bitcoin will soon block small transaction outputs on: May 13, 2013, 05:22:25 PM
Don't like it one bit, this makes it next to impossible to scrape of tiny fractions of your incoming transactions for eg. a service fee.

Of course you can just use sendmany (or do it off blockchain).

i.e. 10x 0.1 BTC inputs and you want to divert 1% as a processing fee.

Transaction consists of:
10 x 0.1 inputs, 10x 0.099 outputs, 1x 0.01 collected fee.
6223  Bitcoin / Bitcoin Discussion / Re: WARNING! Bitcoin will soon block small transaction outputs on: May 13, 2013, 05:19:47 PM
If I take a .1, 54 μBTC or a .00000001 fee out of a 10 BTC incoming it takes up the same amount of space, but whatever. Good luck explaining random transmission fees to bean counter types.


+                    // Never create dust outputs; if we would, just
+                    // add the dust to the fee.
+                    if (newTxOut.IsDust())
+                    {
+                        nFeeRet += nChange;
+                        reservekey.ReturnKey();
+                    }


Somehow this just keeps reminding me of http://www.snopes.com/business/bank/salami.asp and the story of why coins got ridges.

I think you misunderstand.

If you create a 1 BTC (or even 0.1 BTC or even 0.005 BTC) output it is highly likely to be spent eventually.  Now how long may vary.  Some outputs will be spent very quickly, some longer but the UXTO will be roughly based on the number of users * avg life of an unspent output.  The UXTO (not unpruned historical blockchain) is the CRITICIAL RESOURCE.

However if you create a 1 satoshi output it likely will never be spent.  Would you send 1 penny to your mortgage company to pay down the principal if it costs you $0.46 min to mail it?  Of course not.  So even with NO GROWTH in number of users the UXTO will continually bloat by the creation of "uneconomical transactions".

They can't be pruned, they can't be spent (well technically they can people will just choose not to) so they add the overall cost of the network for no benefit. 
6224  Bitcoin / Bitcoin Discussion / Re: WARNING! Bitcoin will soon block small transaction outputs on: May 13, 2013, 05:15:52 PM
The line is being drawn between 0.5 and 1.0 cents because this mirrors how the fiat world works.

This is probably what bothers me the most about this, that people are still so stuck in the old ways of doing things that they want to turn bitcoin into fiat.

There is a cost to everything.  Let me know when you issue 1 mg silver cards (~2.3 US Cents).  Next I will ask why not 1 ng cards (0.0023 US Cents).
6225  Other / Beginners & Help / Re: mt gox account stolen, I lost all my money on: May 13, 2013, 05:13:08 PM
Some technical details would be useful.  There has never been a case of TOTP being "cracked".

Was TOTP (Google Authenticator) enabled on WITHDRAW (settings can be found in security center)?
Was the Google Authenticator installed a second device (i.e. MtGox accessed from home computer,  code generated on android phone)?
Does anyone else have access to the generator (roommate, friend, etc)?
6226  Economy / Economics / Re: USA Debt Repayable on: May 13, 2013, 07:15:34 AM
Countries which are in control of their own printing press never face a default risk. 
Why would the US default?  Nothing in the bonds guarantees the PURCHASING POWER just the nominal amount.

US owes $15T which is a lot today?  Well ramp up 5% inflation a year for 30 years and that $15T nominal is more like $4T in todays dollars.  See $4T on a $20T economy is nothing.  

That doesn't mean buying t-bonds is a good idea as while you may get every penny the price of everything will have quadrupled by the time your 30yr bond was repaid (putting you behind in real terms).

I mean why default, when you can "honor" the letter of the contract, break the spriting of it and repay bondholders in increasingly worthless pieces of paper.
6227  Bitcoin / Mining speculation / Re: Mining after 21 million (What will block fee's be worth??) on: May 13, 2013, 07:10:56 AM
Long before that a union of miners will have lifted that silly 21mln limit.

Then it isn't Bitcoin and the non-union miners will continue to miner the real Bitcoin and keep all the rewards to themselves.

Barring a scenario where 100% of users, miners, merchants, exchanges, service providers, and developers stop all support for the current chain at best all you can do is fork the existing chain.  You can't stop people from using it.

Given the choice of:
a) highly successfuly and well supported current fork
or
b) an inflat-a-coin fork which benefits some miners (the 1%) at the expense of everyone else (the 99%)

why exactly would people stop using the current fork?
6228  Bitcoin / Bitcoin Technical Support / Re: Something strange here.... on: May 13, 2013, 04:14:01 AM
thanks for explaining that seems wierd but if it works, so if my pool payouts keep going to one address then its still keeping the amounts seperate?

I don't think anyone addressed this bit. The answer is no, the amounts aren't kept separate. It's only when an address is an INPUT that its entire amount gets spent. You can have several transactions send to the same address, and the address only stores the total balance (though the blockchain keeps a record of each transaction, and so will your client if you can be arsed to look, which I usually can't).


Not correct.

The blockchain ONLY cares about inputs and outputs.  Each tx creates separate outputs and uses older unspent outputs (making them spent) as inputs.  So if one receives 1 BTC, 0.5 BTC and 0.2 BTC at address X.  The amounts are "seperate".  Nowhere at the protocol level is there "1.7 BTC at address x".  There are three distinct unspent outputs to address X in the amounts of 1.0, 0.5 & 0.2 BTC.  One can create a tx spending one or more of them if one has the private key for address X.


There is no such thing as "total value" at an address at the protocol level.  Now your client will scan the blockchain and give you the total but that is merely an abstraction.  When your wallet shows "balance: 1.000 BTC" what is really means is that "as of the current block I have scanned the entire blockchain and located in the blockchain unspent outputs for addresses that I have the corresponding private key and the sum of those unspent outputs is 1.000 BTC"
6229  Bitcoin / Bitcoin Discussion / Re: WARNING! Bitcoin will soon block small transaction outputs on: May 13, 2013, 03:34:42 AM
There is no censorship here.  You are still free to create and broadcast any transactions you want.  This patch just makes it easier for other people to decide whether to relay your garbage or not.

Obviously not if it will never be included in a block I am not free to do anything the miners choose how I spend my money. Thanks for posting the same thing the last 21 pages are about.

Miners have ALWAYS been free not to include your tx in a block.  Miners everyday routinely don't include tx in the next block (thus the unconfirmed list).

Initially the functionality of the bitcoind were so crude miners had little control over what tx were included.  That wasn't intended it was simply the result of limited development and higher priorities.  Over time more functionality was added which allowed miners to fine tune their transaction selection.

Today miners can and do exclude transactions based on:
a) priority
b) block size
c) tx fees

and starting in 0.8.2
d) output size

0.8.2 simply gives miners the ability to better control the transactions they want to include.  If it wasn't in bitcoind miners could write custom patches to do the very single thing.  Satoshi always intended for miners to have the control over which tx to include.  Nothing has changed, the devs have given miners the tools to make more informed transaction selection. Now miners are "big boys" and if they see a lot of value in including 100 satoshi or even 1 satoshi transactions they can.  They simply need to change the configuration file.  Given miners already set a half dozen configuration values related to min fees, block size, priority, etc one more config value is hardly a burden for a miner.

If you think bitcoin is better off with 1 satoshi spam ... then convince enough nodes to mine them and you can spam away.  The reality is you KNOW miners don't want to include dust spam however prior to 0.8.2 they lacked tools good enough to make optimal tx selection.  No miners wants to bloat the chain with uneconomical spam, it makes their future jobs more difficult.  All those uneconomical outputs have a high probability of never being spent and thus they bloat the UXTO.  The UXTO governs the resources miners (and all full nodes) use to validate tx and blocks.  

It seems you are afraid of the free market.  Freedom is about choice.  You are free to create dust spam, nobody can stop you.  Miners are free to chose not to include that dust spam up till now miners lacked good tools to exclude those tx.  That isn't "freedom" it is merely a lack of choice due to insufficient development.  Starting in 0.8.2 you won't be able to stop miners from exercising their freedom to not include uneconomical transactions. 
6230  Bitcoin / Bitcoin Technical Support / Re: Something strange here.... on: May 12, 2013, 08:45:16 PM
its just im a small time miner so i have payments of .3-.5 btc and id liketo mitigate fees as much as possible as it increases

Make the payment threshold from your pool the largest you are comfortable with.  Each tx is a separate unspent output.
6231  Other / Beginners & Help / Re: I was a billionaire for 2 minutes on: May 12, 2013, 06:47:42 PM
((9/5000)*1000)*120 = $216

((BTC/BBQ)*AmountOfBBQHeld)*GoxUSD = MoneyYouHave

You have $216, hardly billions or even millions.

Don't be that guy (the guy who corrects other people and himself is wrong).
6232  Bitcoin / Bitcoin Technical Support / Re: Something strange here.... on: May 12, 2013, 03:51:14 PM
You don't.  You just spend them.
6233  Bitcoin / Mining speculation / Re: Will Mining fee's keep mining alive? on: May 12, 2013, 01:56:09 AM
I cant say I would be sad if the difficulty suddenly started dropping because everyone else was getting out. 

Difficulty has dropped many times in the past.  When it drops the remaining miners will be more profitable so they have more of an incentive to stay. 
6234  Bitcoin / Bitcoin Technical Support / Re: Something strange here.... on: May 12, 2013, 12:20:29 AM
There is no system. Your client creates a transaction with a 100 BTC input and a pair of outputs 95 & 5 BTC.  The protocol doesn't know or care which is the change address.  It merely sees a valid tx with 100 BTC input and 100 BTC output(s).
6235  Bitcoin / Mining / Re: Why does everyone think Solo Mining is a waste of time? on: May 11, 2013, 11:07:05 AM
Would you prefer a constant pay packet every week or the possibility of getting a years pay one day throughout the year.

Every week? If you are comparing mining to a normal job's salary then I'd actually prefer a years pay immediately. Throughout the year money loses value due to monetary inflation and goods' price inflation. Not to mention the opportunity cost of receiving the money at a later time when they could be invested into something immediately and some of the profits on that investment would be to pay off the living costs and the rest would be reinvested.

Well that wasn't an option.  Maybe an example helps. 

Your employer is willing to hire you under either one of these options:
$100K annually paid $1,923.08 a week
OR
a 1% chance each week of getting $208,000 (EV = $104K annually a 4% bonus over the salary option)

This is your only source of income which would you pick? 
On average, taking the lottery option you will get one paycheck a year but you could get more than one or none in any particularly year.



6236  Bitcoin / Mining / Re: Why does everyone think Solo Mining is a waste of time? on: May 11, 2013, 11:02:50 AM
There comes a time when you wont get anymore than penies but you wont get paid because the minimal amount you need to get a payout is 0.1 BTC ($10 USD)  Are there any pools that have a lower limit like 0.01 USD ?

I'm surprised the p2pool fanatic's haven't chimed in on this one.

P2pool will payout your portion every time a block is found regardless of how small your share is.

Read up on "bag of pennies" wallet and the ramifications of that for you.
Sam

Not exactly true.  The p2pool doesn't have infinite resources so the share chain only records so many shares.  If your hashing power is very low then there is a high probability you won't have any shares in the share chain at the time a block is found.
6237  Alternate cryptocurrencies / Altcoin Discussion / Re: Timed Retarget on: May 11, 2013, 05:39:16 AM
Who's time?  Time in a decentralized network isn't deterministic.

Say x minutes pass so some nodes lower difficulty and one finds a block however due to differences in clocks some nodes believe it has been < x minutes. 

HARD FORK TIME.  Some nodes believe the lower difficulty block is valid and some believe it isn't.  There is no resolution possible.
6238  Bitcoin / Development & Technical Discussion / Re: Concerns regarding deterministic wallet on: May 10, 2013, 06:52:05 PM
An additional secuirty advantage of deterministic wallets that wasn't mentioned here is that the user can generate new receiving addresses without providing his AES passphrase to decrypt/encrypt his wallet, by using type-2 key homomorphism. This means that the user would need to decrypt his privkeys only when he wishes to spend coins.

That's exactly how Armory wallets work, right now. 


Plus a lot of other powerful features like watching wallet can be put on webserver allowing site to "know" when deposits are made without exposing the seed or private keys.  This can be done using qt client by setting keypool to zero, generating a large number of keypairs and then exporting only the public keys to the webserver.  However it is "clunky".
6239  Bitcoin / Bitcoin Discussion / Re: A new Catchy name for 0.0001 BTC? on: May 10, 2013, 06:49:17 PM
millicoin informally.

If I was pricing something in print I would just use mBTC.


Wouldn't millicoin imply 0.001 BTC?  (one less decimal place)

Yes.  Oops didn't notice the extra zero.  Yeah there is no reason to name the 0.0001.  It currently has a value of ~0.12 US cents.  Nobody is going to use it in conversation or pricing.  Saying "the dust threshold is 0.5mBTC" understood by just about everyone.  Still not sure why the devs decided to make it 0.543 mBTC I mean it is likely the 0.043 mBTC has any real significance.  Just make it a nice round "half mBTC".  The min output most miners will accept is half a millicoin.
6240  Other / Off-topic / Re: Who DeathAndTaxes is? on: May 10, 2013, 06:16:50 PM
No. D&T is smart, but he's not THAT smart.

This.  The first time I learned about Bitcoin, I took a look at the whitepaper and code I found all kinds of "flaws".  It wasn't until hours (days?) of reading and researching that the elegance of the solution became visible (like a Polaroid appearing from the black).  It is humbling when you realize that you are looking at the product of someone far above your own capabilities and they have created what you previously considered impossible.  In a hundred years in a hundred parallel worlds I wouldn't have come up with the concept of Bitcoin, it was simply too alien.  It goes beyond just intelligence, the idea was simply outside my frame of reference.  The problem wasn't even one I considered that a solution existed.  

Now Satoshi's coding (nuts and bolts)?  Blech that is another story but nobody complains that Einstein's notes are hard to read because he had bad handwriting.

For the record:
Quote
I can't ask him "Are you Satoshi", well, I can, but I bet he will answer "No" in any case.
No.

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