It is hard to be a merchant [NOT a rant].

[bb113]

I am basically reselling everything I should not carry in my hands from A to B. Like cellphone refills, skype credit, online games credits and on case-by-case basis things that can be bough in any online shop (paying fiat for my customers). I think of myself as a kind of gateway. And yes, I do recognize that far from every business model is viable. So maybe it is just me

Just trying to operate the facts:
1) Bitcoin if deflatory in long term, inflatory at the moment. I mean look at the graph
2) People prefer doing risky things like speculating, gambling and ponzi with bitcoin. The rate volatility, satoshidice and pirate are the examples.

How can these be comprehended? Theretically bitcoin is great for savings. But not if you want to tap into your stash now. Why people a going to such crazy risks with gambling and ponzi? Hm... it is hard for me to tell since I am no that sort of guy. Overall doing mundane things like buying things for consumption is not that appealing. And I wonder why?

It is interesting that this is how it is being used during the "inflationary" phase. I think that may also have to do with a sampling bias though. It takes some level of risky personally to have invested time into learning to use bitcoin at this point.

In terms of buying things, until there is a trusted escrow, people are wary of making large purchases online. Chargebacks are a useful feature when buying online, merchants need to be giving discounts to encourage people to spend bitcoins if that is what they want them to spend.

[bb113]

At the risk of turning this into a inflation vs deflation debate (although it has probably already was one ), it might be fair to say it boils down to what you want for your society:

Deflationary currency has a risk of high unemployment, but little wastage.
Inflationary currency has low unemployment, but a risk of high wastage.

They are mutually exclusive, and it all depends on what your appetite for the destructive forces of hunger as to which you'd find more appealing I suppose.

People will, however, still fund crappy companies even if money was really expensive...look how many people gave the original ponzi money, and back then money was backed by precious metals afaik. Bitcoins are long term deflationary...look how many people have given BS&T coins and may lose them all. I'm just saying that you can't blame people's risk appetite on the underlying trade tools. Gamblers gotta Gamble.

You're right about it all consuming resources faster, though. If people don't want money they will spend on things - yay for gdp! boo for the environment! God help this planet.

The reason it would cause unemployment is overpopulation, which I wouldn't say is caused by monetary policy but is definitely encouraged by it. What is needed is an end to the bubble:

[Hunterbunter]

Sorry bro all I saw was:

bubble

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7IYR_rELyE

Hehe the last one was especially sickly ...maybe the writers were trying to say something.

More seriously, though, people like seeing numbers go up. No one likes seeing a share price go down - even if it's because money is hard to come by because of deflationary forces which mean the dividends that do come still have more purchasing power than the ones used to purchase the share.

Inflation is just easier to understand for the layman...we learn to count up...perhaps we should start teaching kids to count backwards instead of forwards and they'll more easily accept deflationary currencies.