Bitcoin's Usefulness - So utterly apparent

[2112]

And guesses as to my age by others here have been all over the map, ranging from really low to really high, so perhaps I am obtuse enough to be confusing.

Age isn't a number. The best phrase I heard about this is from my former landlord and a real-estate manager who insisted on face-to-face meetings to ascertain the credit rating: "fifty going on fifteen".

Please feel free to call yourself "young at heart" if "youngster" was offensive. I apologise.

[2112]

built my own home to suit,

The phrase "my own home" means something else in the USA than throughout the rest of the world.

In fact, the American society is so diverse, that even in the USA this phrase lost any meaning without the cultural context.

http://dba-oracle.com/redneck.htm

[notme]

built my own home to suit,

The phrase "my own home" means something else in the USA than throughout the rest of the world.

In fact, the American society is so diverse, that even in the USA this phrase lost any meaning without the cultural context.

http://dba-oracle.com/redneck.htm

Can you explain the difference to us?  You seem to know everything, but you also seem unwilling to share your vast knowledge.

[2112]

Can you explain the difference to us?  You seem to know everything, but you also seem unwilling to share your vast knowledge.

I'm sorry, I though it was obvious after the housing bubble and how widely publicized it was.

In the USA "own a home" most frequently means "have a mortgage to pay" or "have a home equity line of credit to pay".  The actual home-owners are surprisingly rare, especially in the more prestigious or upscale locations. The stress caused by high debt load in turn causes many family problems.

On the other hand "voluntary debt slavery" may be considered a new social glue for the USA. There's no easier man to scare that the one who has a mortgage and lifestyle to maintain.

Edit: OK, I think I just gotten myself trolled. Here's the quote from the redneck link I posted above. And with this quote I'm going to end participating in this thread.

Living around Rednecks has had a profound effect on my way of looking at life.  Once while driving my fancy new car, I visited a country cousin and committed what Redneck Theologists call the “sin of pride” when I mentioned that the car had cost me a fortune.  In good humor, he pointed to his giant farm tractor and said, “Well, I’m impressed. See that reaper over there?  She cost me over $200,000.00; I paid cash; and I reckon I only take her out a few weeks a year”.  Man, was I ever humbled in the presence of such profound Redneck wisdom.  I now think twice before bragging.

[Quetzalcoatl_]

What about the sudden implementation of withdrawal limits on savings accounts? Apparently, more than 6 withdrawals from savings per month is some kind of federal reporting trigger, and the bank can and will close your account for exceeding that. I don't recall any such limitation until recently, although I am not sure what law was passed to make that effective. They insist that you use a checking account for frequent transfers instead.

This limitation was there since forever. The root of it is in the costs of insuring and maintaining the account. I'm kinda thinking that "sudden" probably means "first time in my life that I read the account disclosure booklet. I used to simply throw it away."

One thing that US banking system has figured out exceedingly well is the default and fraud risk on personal accounts. There are so many flags that signal imminent personal bankruptcy, one of them is lack of normal monthly or biweekly budget planning. It manifests itself by too frequent too small withdrawals. The limits are on the quantity of individual withdrawals, not on the total amount withdrawn.

Railing against those limits is akin to railing against higher car insurance rates for unmarried men less than 25 years old. It leads nowhere because it has no wider social support.

Combine that with the $1000 daily limit that is imposed on many savings accounts, and that means you can only withdraw $6000 a month from a savings account. With restrictions like that, you can't pay cash for that $200,000 reaper.